Juan Soto belted two home runs, Seth Lugo was one out away from a complete-game shutout and the San Diego Padres squared their three-game series against the host San Francisco Giants with a 4-0 victory on Tuesday night.
The outcome left the Padres (78-80) and Giants (78-80) tied for third place in the National League West and still alive in the NL wild-card race, with each now 4 1/2 games out of the final spot.
Soto hit his 34th and 35th homers of the season. He ripped a solo shot off Giants opener John Brebbia (3-3) in the first inning and added a two-run blast off Ryan Walker in the seventh.
The latter, which completed the game’s scoring, allowed Soto to surpass his career-high of 34 homers that he had set with the Washington Nationals in 2019.
The two-homer game was Soto’s fifth of the season, his second at San Francisco after having contributed a pair to a 7-4 loss in June.
Lugo (8-7) stymied the Giants for the second time this month. He followed up six innings of three-hit shutout ball on Sept. 3 with a season-high 8 2/3 innings in the rematch. He gave up three hits, walked three and struck out seven.
Josh Hader got the final out — a strikeout of Wilmer Flores — with two aboard in the ninth, wrapping up Lugo’s career-best eighth win.
The save was Hader’s 32nd of the season.
San Diego’s other run came in the third inning with the aid of a Thairo Estrada throwing error, as Ha-Seong Kim brought Brett Sullivan home with a groundout. Sullivan had advanced to third on Xander Bogaerts’ infield single that featured the poor throw from Estrada.
Soto also singled and walked in a 3-for-4 night for the Padres, who won for the 10th time in their past 12 games.
Two of the Giants’ three hits were doubles, including one in the first inning by J.D. Davis, who was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple. Davis appeared to injure his shoulder on the slide into third and left the game two innings later.
Brebbia, who pitched one out into the second inning and allowed just the one run, took the loss.
