Brian Giles' tiebreaking single with two outs in the top of the 10th inning gave San Diego a 5-4 victory over San Francisco on Wednesday and snapped the Padres' four-game losing streak.
The first-place Padres rallied to avoid a three-game sweep and extended their lead over San Francisco to six games in the National League West.
Rudy Seanez (7-1) pitched a scoreless ninth for the victory. Trevor Hoffman got his 35th straight save and 38th overall as the Padres won despite stranding 15 runners.
Pedro Feliz hit a go-ahead, two-run double with two outs in the eighth for the Giants, but pinch-hitter Sean Burroughs tied it in the ninth with a two-out, two-run double off Armando Benitez.
Giles singled against LaTroy Hawkins (2-7) for his third hit of the game.
Barry Bonds entered as a pinch-hitter against Akinori Otsuka with two runners on in the eighth and struck out looking.
Pirates 5, Cardinals 3
At St. Louis, Brad Eldred hit two solo shots for his first multihomer game and Pittsburgh's bullpen worked 7 1-3 innings after Oliver Perez was ejected, keeping St. Louis' magic number for clinching the NL Central at two.
The Pirates won for only the fourth time in 19 games and denied the Cardinals a chance to clinch a tie for the division title at home. St. Louis completed a 6-4 homestand and begans a 10-game road trip yesterday.
Jason Bay homered, doubled and drove in two runs off Jason Marquis (12-14) for the Pirates, who finished 4-12 against the Cardinals this season.
Eldred homered leading off the second and hit his ninth in the sixth for a 4-1 lead.
Perez was ejected with two outs in the second inning after hitting Hector Luna in the left leg with a pitch.
Ryan Vogelsong (2-1) allowed a run in 2 1-3 innings for the win. Mike Gonzalez, the Pirates' seventh pitcher, got two outs for his second save.
Other games
At Philadelphia, the Phillies beat the Braves 12-4, while the Nationals defeated the Mets 6-3 at New York. The Reds defeated the Cubs 7-4 over 11 innings at Chicago, the Rockies beat the Dodgers 8-7 at Los Angeles, while the Diamondbacks beat the Brewers 2-1 at Phoenix.
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia yesterday advanced to the women’s doubles final at the Australian Open after defeating New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe and Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-3 in their semi-final. Hsieh has won nine Grand Slam doubles titles and has a shot at a 10th tomorrow, when the Latvian-Taiwanese duo are to play Taylor Townsend of the US and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic in the championship match at the A$96.5 million (US$61 million) outdoor hard court tournament at Melbourne Park. Townsend and Siniakova eliminated Russian pair Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva 6-7
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