Martin Perez picked up his first victory with San Diego, and it came against his former team this season, as the Padres routed the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates 8-2 on Wednesday to complete a three-game sweep.
Jake Cronenworth and David Peralta homered for San Diego, which has won 19 of its last 22 games.
Perez (3-5) lasted 5 1/3 innings, allowing five hits and a run with one walk and eight strikeouts. In three starts with San Diego, Perez has permitted just four runs in 18 1/3 innings. The left-hander was traded from Pittsburgh on July 30 for a minor-league prospect.
Mitch Keller (10-7) was pounded for the second straight outing for Pittsburgh, which dropped its 10th consecutive game. Keller pitched five innings, permitting eight runs on eight hits while walking two and fanning two.
The Padres did all their damage off Keller in the first three innings. Luis Arraez and Jurickson Profar led off the first with singles, followed by Cronenworth’s 15th homer, a three-run blast that reached the front row of seats down the right-field line and traveled an estimated 348 feet.
Arraez made it 4-0 in the second. After Tyler Wade singled with two outs, Arraez looped a liner to center that Michael A. Taylor dove for and missed. By the time left fielder Bryan Reynolds could retrieve the ball, Wade easily scored from first on the double.
San Diego made it an 8-0 rout in the third. Walks to Cronenworth and Manny Machado preceded Jackson Merrill’s two-run triple into the right-field corner. Peralta cashed in Merrill with a two-run homer, his sixth, that went an estimated 386 feet to right field.
Perez cruised along with the big lead until Bryan Hoeing relieved him with one out in the sixth. The Pirates’ only run off him came to start the sixth as designated hitter Joey Bart clubbed his 11th homer of the year to left-center. They added a run in the ninth on an RBI single by Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
The result marked the Padres’ sixth series sweep of the year, all since mid-June. They’ve swept four series in their recent run, two of them against Pittsburgh.
–Field Level Media