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Padres jump out early, hold on against Mariners

May 17, 2008 - 6:54 AM SEATTLE (Ticker) -- Tadahito Iguchi and Brian Giles combined for seven hits and four RBI to lift the San Diego Padres to a 6-4 win Friday in an interleague matchup against the Seattle Mariners.

Jody Gerut, Kevin Kouzmanoff and Khalil Greene each had two hits for the Padres, who posted just their fifth win of the month.

The worst offensive team in the major leagues, San Diego wasted no time scoring runs against Seattle, jumping on starter Miguel Batista for three runs in the first.

"We're due to go through one of these little streaks where everything kind of snowballs in a positive direction," Giles said.

"We had much better contact (than in the last series in Chicago) ... much better swings overall," Padres manager Bud Black said. "Right out of the chute, it was great to see three successive balls hit right on the nose."

Gerut led off the game with a triple and came in to score on Iguchi's single. Giles plated Iguchi with a double and Greene capped the outburst four batters later with a sacrifice fly.

"I thought if we could wait (Batista) out we would get pitches over the middle and we would be able to do something with them, and we did a good job of that tonight," Giles said. "It's nice for us to start from the first inning and get some runs and take some pressure off our pitching."

Iguchi added a solo blast in the second inning to push the lead to 4-0.

Seattle battled back, getting to Chris Young for three runs in the second to close within 4-3. But Josh Bard doubled in a run in the third and Giles provided some insurance with an RBI single in the sixth.

Batista (3-5) was lifted after allowing six runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings. The veteran righthander has yielded four runs or more in five of his nine starts this season.

"Batista wasn't real sharp," Mariners manager John McLaren said. "It took him a while to get his rhythm going. His location wasn't real good the first couple of innings at all.

"Young was struggling too, and he got his rhythm going. I don't know what to say, to tell you the truth. It's a little disappointing. (Pitching coach) Mel (Stottlemeyer) said (Batista) threw good in the bullpen. It's tough when you've got to think about going to your bullpen in the second inning. Miggy did hang on there and give us some innings."

Young (4-3) surrendered four runs in the first three innings but settled down to last six frames. The 6-10 righthander gave up five hits and four walks while striking out five.

"The guys came out and swung the bats well and gave me a big cushion early," Young said. "I tried my best to give it back but fortunately wasn't able to do so. They gave me such a big margin for error that I had some room to make mistakes. I made them and we kept scoring. I made some mistakes with my slider that cost me some runs."

"I thought (Young's) stuff was pretty good," Black said. "I think the velocity was back. The mistakes that he made they capitalized on ... I thought the way he threw the ball was definitely good enough to get a victory."

The Padres appeared to add a run in the top of the ninth, when Bard hit a bases-loaded grounder to Richie Sexson at first base. Sexson came home with the throw and bounced it in front of catcher Kenji Johjima, who failed to pick up the ball cleanly.

Johjima's body was shielding plate umpire Jim Joyce, who did not see the ball squirt between the catcher's legs. Johjima did not pick up the ball until seconds after Justin Huber already had crossed the plate and gotten up to head back to the dugout, but Joyce called him out.

Trevor Hoffman struck out the side in a scoreless ninth for his eighth save of the season. It was the 38th career interleague save for Hoffman - second all-time behind Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees.