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Diamondbacks hand Padres 6th straight loss, 7-4

Sep 1, 2010 - 5:38 AM PHOENIX(AP) -- The Arizona Diamondbacks are having fun on the field and its translating to wins.

Miguel Montero drove in the go-ahead runs with a ground-rule double, Gerardo Parra made two critical defensive plays and hit a two-run single, and the Diamondbacks beat San Diego 7-4 Tuesday night to hand the NL West-leading Padres their sixth straight loss.

The victory finished off the first winning month for Arizona since last August.

"It's always fun when you win, no matter how you win," a smiling Kirk Gibson, the Diamondbacks manager, said. "Guys have played well. Got some good performances from everybody."

Arizona was 16-13 in August.

The Padres led 3-2 to start the fifth inning. Parra stole a hit from Miguel Tejada with a diving catch near the right-field foul line, then ended the inning by bringing in a deep fly ball from Adrian Gonzalez at the wall.

"It gets you off the field," Gibson said. "They are uplifting in general, when you make good plays."

In the bottom half, the Diamondbacks batted around. San Diego's failure to turn a double play on Rusty Ryal's sharp grounder to third put runners at the corners with one out. After a walk, Chris Young tied the game with an RBI single.

Montero's double into the left-field corner followed, and after an intentional walk to load the bases, Parra delivered with his bat. The Diamondbacks scored five runs in the fifth and chased Kevin Correia (10-10) en route to their fifth victory in six games.

"A couple of hits here and there, it gets you going," Montero said. "Then you realize you already scored four or five runs.

"We've been playing really good baseball right now, so the goal is to finish strong and make it hard on the other teams," Montero added.

Arizona's defense shined in the sixth as well. Second baseman Kelly Johnson fielded a pair of hard grounders that he turned into outs. The second of those brought Padres manager Bud Black out of the dugout to argue first base umpire Mike Everitt's out call on batter Chris Denorfia. Black was ejected.

"You win as a team and you lose as a team," Black said. "There isn't any one factor. It is a combination of the pitching and not being real sharp. We are not scoring a ton of runs. Our defense has been pretty consistent. We haven't been giving games away.

"But it is probably a factor of the three things, defense, offense and pitching...We're in that range now where we are losing low-scoring games and losing some games when we score a few runs."

Mark Reynolds hit his third home run in two nights, a two-run shot in the second inning that tied it at 2.

Ian Kennedy (9-9) allowed three runs in seven innings for the win and Juan Gutierrez got three outs for his fifth save.

The Padres opened the scoring on a double by Gonzalez followed by Ryan Ludwick's RBI single in the first inning. San Diego took the lead on Nick Hundley's RBI double in the fourth.

Hundley got his opportunity because regular catcher Yorvit Torrealba was scratched from the lineup with back stiffness, and drove in two runs with three doubles.

"You are going to have streaks like this," Correia said. "Luckily somehow we haven't had one all year. It is coming at a bad time but we still have a lot of leeway."

Notes: Diamondbacks regulars Justin Upton and Adam LaRoche weren't in the lineup, but both were available to pinch-hit. Upton is dealing with left shoulder irritation from a swing in his last at-bat Monday, and LaRoche lobbied manger Kirk Gibson to play but was denied because of a sore right knee. Both are expected to play Wednesday. ... RHP Kris Benson had a setback in his rehabilitation from a right shoulder injury and will be shut down for the rest of the season. He remains on the 60-day disabled list. Padres pitching prospect Cory Luebke will be recalled from Triple-A Portland to start Friday and make his major league debut against Colorado.