MANNY MACHADO and Xander Bogaerts homered and the San Diego Padres clinched home-field advantage in the first round of the National League (NL) playoffs with a 10-7 victory over the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday.
Machado’s 30th homer of the season, a three-run opposite field shot off Jose Cabrera (0-4) in the fourth, gave the Padres (90-71) a 6-4 lead they never lost.
The Padres, the No. 4 seed, will open a best-of-three NL wild-card series against the fifth-seeded Chicago Cubs on Tuesday.
The D-backs (86-75) remained in the race for the final NL wild-card spot after Philadelphia (87-74) lost to Tampa Bay on Saturday. The D-backs own the tiebreaker over the Phillies and will advance if they win on Sunday and the Phillies lose at home to the Rays.
Arizona scored three runs off Mason Miller in the ninth but he struck out Ildemaro Vargas to end the game.
Jake Cronenworth had two hits and two RBIs for the Padres, who have won eight of 10 and 16 of 19.
James McCann hit a two-run homer, Tim Tawa had three hits and Ketel Mate added two hits for the D-backs, who had a season-high six-game winning streak broken. — Reuters