Diamondbacks 7, Padres 4

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.