• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Germano shines as Padres blank Diamondbacks

Jul 16, 2007 - 12:56 AM PHOENIX (Ticker) -- Justin Germano outdueled reigning Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb to help the San Diego Padres post a 4-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday.

Milton Bradley had two RBI and Mike Cameron and Germano each drove in a run for the Padres, who snapped their three-game losing streak.

Germano (6-3) yielded four hits with four strikeouts and three walks in 6 1/3 innings to win his first decision since June 14 at Tampa Bay. The righthander was coming off his worst outing of the season, surrendering seven runs over four innings July 6 against Atlanta.

"My key all the time is to get ahead and stay out of trouble," Germano said. "I needed to have this type of game to get my confidence back up after my last couple of outings. You don't want to think about them, but they are in the back of your mind so you want to got out and have a solid outing."

San Diego gave Germano the only run he needed in the third inning, when Brian Giles singled to right off of Webb, stole second and scored on Bradley's RBI single.

Giles finished with three hits and two stolen bases.

"You never want to get swept," Giles said. "For us to drop the game last night the way we did and to be able to bounce back (Sunday) against their ace, although you ask Brandon and he will say he didn't have his best stuff, it is really huge."

The Padres doubled their lead to 2-0 in the fifth, when Adrian Gonzalez doubled to left and went to third when Arizona left fielder Scott Hairston misplayed the ball. Gonzalez then scored on Cameron's run-scoring single to left.

In the sixth, Germano helped his own cause with an RBI single to plate Russell Branyan, who tripled to right-center field.

Webb (8-7) went 5 2/3 innings, allowing four runs and 11 hits. The All-Star struck out 10, walked two and threw a season-high 116 pitches.

"If I didn't strike them out, I wasn't getting them out," Webb said. "There were a lot of broken-bat hits, two runs scored on three of the four broken-bat hits. I was making decent pitches. If I threw a shutout, I wasn't gonna win. That is how it was."

The Diamondbacks had a chance to get on the board in the seventh with men on first and second after Germano was replaced by Heath Bell, who surrendered five straight hits in Friday's loss.

But Bell induced Chris Snyder to ground into an inning-ending double play.

"What we saw last night is an extremely rare occurrence. Without any hesitation, I have a great deal of confidence in our bullpen based on their performances," Padres manager Bud Black said. "I also think it is good when a guy gets right back on the horse and gets back on the mound instead of waiting a number of days and thinks about it."

Chris B. Young, who pinch hit for Webb in the sixth, had two hits for the Diamondbacks, who had 10 or more hits in their three previous games.

"They were more opportunistic, when they get 13 hits and we end up with six and no runs, they put it to us," Diamondback manager Bob Melvin said. "We were trying to play catch up all game against a guy who was pitching very well against us."