Nestor Cortes made the best start of his brief tenure with the San Diego Padres in a 5-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Petco Park, Saturday.
Cortes was efficient and worked five shutout innings on 69 pitches. The more impressive stat through those five innings was Cortes did not allow a hit and struck out three Dodgers hitters. He allowed his first hit with one out in the top of the sixth inning, but remained focused and did not allow that runner to leave first base.
The Padres starter had a final line of six complete innings with no runs allowed on one hit with no walks and three strikeouts. Cortes handed the ball off to his bullpen after the sixth and watched Jason Adam work a scoreless seventh inning.
Jeremiah Estrada started the top of the eighth inning for San Diego and surrendered a one-out, pinch-hit solo home run to Alex Freeland to make the score, 3-1. Estrada recorded the second out of the inning and was replaced by Adrian Morejon, who struck out Michael Conforto the end the top of the eighth.
The Padres offense immediately responded to the run scored by the Dodgers in the top of the inning with two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning. San Diego had runners at second and third with two outs and Xander Bogaerts hit a ball just inside the right field line that scored Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado to make the score 5-1.
Morejon stayed in to work the top of the ninth inning and he recorded the final three outs of the contest en route to the 5-1 win and the series win.
Los Angeles starter Tyler Glasnow matched Cortes until the bottom of the fourth inning. San Diego hitters made Glasnow work and loaded the bases on a walk to Machado, a single to Ryan O’Hearn and a walk to Bogaerts to start the frame.
The single by O’Hearn was the first hit allowed by Glasnow. Bogaerts was followed by Gavin Sheets, who lined out to first base. Ramon Laureano delivered a one-out, two-run single to right-center field to give the Padres a 2-0 lead.
Jake Cronenworth followed Laureano and had runners at the corners with one out. He was able to lift a ball to left-center field that was deep enough to allow Bogaerts to score and push the Padres lead to 3-0.
San Diego will have an opportunity to sweep Los Angeles and move two games ahead for the NL West lead, Sunday at 1:10 p.m.
