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Padres edge Brewers to avoid three-game sweep

Aug 14, 2008 - 11:05 PM By Tim Powers PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

SAN DIEGO (Ticker) -- Jake Peavy pitched seven solid innings and the San Diego Padres used a three-run seventh inning to defeat the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-2, and avoid a sweep of the three-game series on Thursday.

Kevin Kouzmanoff and Chase Headley each collected two hits and sparked the late rally - of which Peavy (9-8) was the beneficiary - which snapped Milwaukee's season-high eight-game winning streak.

Peavy outdueled his counterpart, Ben Sheets, as the contest was scoreless through six innings until the Brewers pushed one run across in the seventh on an RBI single by Mike Cameron.

The reigning National League Cy Young Award winner, Peavy, limited the damage, allowing four hits over seven innings in lowering his major-league best home ERA to 1.42. The 26-year-old righthander struck out eight and walked three.

"You're pitching against one of the best, if not the best, pitchers in the league when he's healthy, that's fun," Peavy said. "It was a fun game to be a part of. What a big day for the guys to come back and rally against a guy like Ben Sheets. Any time you have a match-up like that, you know runs are going to be at a premium."

San Diego broke through against Sheets (11-6) in the seventh as three consecutive hits evened the score and pinch hitter Bryan Myrow's sacrifice fly brought Headley home to give it a 2-1 bulge. Jody Gerut laced a two-out RBI single to push the advantage to 3-1.

"(Sheets) has got real good stuff, but in my at-bats, he gave me some good pitches to hit and fortunately, I was able to do something with them," Headley said. "It's been frustrating when our pitchers have had a real good game and we haven't been able to support them. It was nice to be able to come back, score some runs and get Jake a win."

"I thought it was a great match-up of two premier pitchers," Padres manager Bud Black said. "After the first couple of innings, Jake really started hitting his spots. When we strung some hits together, that was nice to see. We hit the ball good that inning."

Reliever Heath Bell worked around a double to pitch a scoreless eighth and gave way for closer Trevor Hoffman, who surrendered a solo homer to Cameron in the ninth before recovering to notch his 26th save.

Sheets followed a complete game shutout in his last outing with six scoreless frames before falling apart in the seventh. The 30-year-old righthander allowed three runs on four hits over 6 2/3 innings while striking out four and walking two.

"It ended up being a duel the whole way," Sheets said. "They found some holes (in the seventh), hit a ball or two hard and put it where we weren't. I was probably off with my location a little bit. You can't do anything about dinks and dunks."

Craig Counsell had two hits for the Brewers, who had won 13 of their last 15 games on the road.

"(The starting pitchers) were both locked in, both of them pitching," Brewers manager Ned Yost said. "You just wanted to see which one was going to out-weight the other one, which one would come out of the game first. Peavy was on top of his game, boy he's tough, but so is Ben."