SAN DIEGO — The Los Angeles Dodgers and the sellout crowds were gone.
Fernando Tatis Jr. remains.
The 22-year-old shortstop hit home runs in his first three at-bats Friday night and tied a career high with four hits as the Padres beat Arizona Diamondbacks 11-5 at Petco Park.
Tatis moved into a tie with Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for the major league lead with 25 homers and joined six other players in Padres history who have homered three times in a game.
The victory was the Padres’ eighth in a row, all of them since returning home June 17. The Diamondbacks extended their major league record to 24 straight road losses.
Tatis had two chances to become the 17th player in modern MLB history to hit four homers in a game, but he singled in the seventh inning and grounded out in the eighth.
His third homer, which was the Padres’ fifth of the game, also drove in Tommy Pham, who had been hit by a pitch, and put the Padres up 8-5 in the fourth inning.
After Tatis singled to lead off the seventh, Eric Hosmer drove him in with a two-out single to make it 9-5. The Padres added two more runs, one in the seventh on Trent Grisham’s double and the other in the eighth on a single by Manny Machado.
Pham led off the bottom of the first inning with a homer immediately before Tatis’ first blast, and Jake Cronenworth homered immediately after Tatis did in the second inning.
Friday was the fourth straight game the Padres hit at least one homer in the first inning and the second straight game in which they hit back-to-back homers in the first.
But the Padres’ historically lousy opponent did not allow them to easily continue their perfect homestand.
In a ballpark that was far less full (32,583) and generally much quieter than it had been for three midweek sellouts against the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks clawed part of the way back from a 4-0 deficit with three runs in the second and then from a 6-3 deficit with two runs in the third.
All the Diamondbacks’ runs came against Padres starter Chris Paddack, who yielded eight hits in 2 1/3 innings before being replaced by Nick Ramirez.
