SAN DIEGO (AP) — Kyle Higashioka homered leading off the ninth inning and the San Diego Padres beat the Oakland Athletics 4-3 on Tuesday night.
Fernando Tatis Jr. extended his hitting streak to a career-high 17 games, but Jurickson Profar, who entered second in the big leagues in batting and first in the NL in on-base percentage, hurt himself swinging at a pitch leading off the eighth and fell to the ground.
Profar was replaced by pinch-hitter David Peralta, who flied out to center field. The Padres loaded the bases with two outs before Merrill Jackson flied out to left.
Higashioka ended it with a drive to left off left-hander Scott Alexander (0-1), his fifth homer of the season. It was the first career walk-off homer for Higashioka, and his second game-ending hit.
Afterward, he chatted up professional surfer Rob Machado in the clubhouse.
“He's probably my favorite surfer, because I'm also a goofy footer, so I watch a lot of his videos," Higashioka said. “That might have been cooler than hitting the walk-off.”
Higashioka, who is from Huntington Beach, which is known as Surf City USA, said homering was “kind of the last thing that was going through my mind, especially with a high groundball guy. If you get too big against those guys, you end up just pounding them into the ground. We definitely just needed a baserunner. Luckily he hung a changeup, and just stayed through it.”
Padres manager Mike Shildt said Profar has a “sore knee. I mean, it’s something he’s been battling and playing with a little bit. ... It’s something he’s dealt with and medically we have a handle on. I think we’ve got a pretty good idea of what this is and we've been able to treat it and get ahead of it. Tonight it just was one of those nights that wasn't good for him."
Robert Suarez (3-0) got the win.
Tatis singled and doubled. He has the longest current hitting streak in the majors. He also extended his on-base streak to a career-best 21 games.
“Every win is huge,” Tatis said. “Even losing Profar at the end and still as a team being able to come back, shows what resiliency we have. We feel like we are in every single game.”
He said watching Profar leave the game “is concerning. It's huge. It's like losing our very backbone right now. Hopefully our boy can be back tomorrow. It's baseball, and injuries are always part of it.”
Tatis said Profar has been dealing with the sore knee for a month, “probably being too much on the bases, that's what we have been talking about.”
The Padres popped above .500 by winning the series and will go for their first sweep of the season Wednesday.
The A’s have lost 10 of 13 and are a season-worst 17 games below .500.
Tyler Soderstrom tied it at 3 for Oakland with a two-run homer off Enyel De Los Santos with one out in the eighth and Miguel Andujar aboard on a single. It was his third.
The tying homer came three innings after the Padres took a 3-1 lead against JP Sears. After Luis Arraez’s two-out infield single brought in Ha-Seong Kim from second base to tie the score at 1, Tatis doubled to center. Profar singled to bring in Arraez and Tatis, and then was thrown out at home trying to score on Manny Machado’s double to center.
Tatis also singled in the first.
Oakland's Abraham Toro homered on Randy Vásquez's first pitch. Toro has hit both of Oakland's leadoff homers this year. The other was on April 19 at Cleveland. It was his sixth homer of the season.
Vásquez held the A's to one run and seven hits in five innings, struck out five and walked two.
Sears allowed three runs and seven hits in five innings, walked three and struck out one.
