Padres keep winning ways against Brewers

By: BRIAN HIRO - Staff Writer | Tuesday, May 31, 2005 5:46 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- When Padres manager Bruce Bochy says his team is receiving contributions from everybody during its historic month of May, he means it.

Backup catcher Miguel Ojeda entered the Padres' game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday night with a club-worst .159 batting average. He didn't produce a hit in six at-bats during the just-completed nine-game road trip.

Yet the Padres are passing the hero's tag around their clubhouse like juicy gossip, and on this day it was Ojeda's turn to try it on. He wore it as proudly as if he were playing for his native Mexico.

Pinch-hitting for pitcher Scott Linebrink in the No. 3 hole, Ojeda curled a two-out double just inside the left-field line off Jorge De La Rosa in the bottom of the ninth inning. The double scored a hard-charging Geoff Blum from first base with the winning run in a 2-1 victory before 36,152 at Petco Park.

"Every time I swing the bat, I expect something good to happen," Ojeda said. "This is baseball. Sometimes you fail, sometimes you're successful like tonight."

The Padres continued to scale epic heights in a magical May. The comeback win was their 21st victory for the month ---- building on a franchise record ---- and their 10th in a row at home, tying a club mark last achieved in 1999.

"It's great to play this well at home," said Bochy, whose team is 17-4 at home ---- best in the major leagues.

A day after role players Damian Jackson and Robert Fick delivered run-producing hits to snap a ninth-inning tie in San Francisco, two more non-stars found the limelight.

After De La Rosa struck out Xavier Nady and Dave Roberts to start the ninth, Blum lined a single to center field. Ojeda then hit a high change-up into the left-field corner, and Blum chugged around the bases before sliding hard into Brewers catcher Damian Miller.

"There was nobody else on the field but the ball and me," said Blum, the Padres' stand-in third baseman, who had his fourth consecutive multihit game. "I don't even know if (third base coach Rob Picciolo) held me or sent me. I was going to score. As I got close to the plate, there were 25 guys in the on-deck circle all yelling to slide."

As his delirious teammates piled onto Blum at home plate, Ojeda jumped up and down near second base and flung his helmet into the air.

An impromptu fiesta broke out in the postgame clubhouse, with the stereo blaring "El Rancho Grande," Ojeda's favorite song by his favorite band, El Coyote, whose lead singer is a friend from Mazatlan.

"The pileup and the celebration gave me goose bumps," Ojeda said.

Said Blum: "This team is all about picking each other up. There are no egos in this clubhouse. Miguel was the man tonight."

After the Padres averaged 8.8 runs and batted .350 as a team in the final six games of their road trip, at Arizona and San Francisco, they were cooled off by a Milwaukee pitching staff that came in with the National League's second-best earned-run average.

Brewers starter Victor Santos and Padres counterpart Darrell May each allowed one run ---- May in five innings ---- setting the stage for a battle of benches and bullpens.

The Brewers had a golden opportunity to score the go-ahead run off Linebrink in the top of the ninth, but poor baserunning killed it. Jeff Cirillo, a highly paid bust whom the Padres released last season, walked and stole second base. Jackson let the throw from catcher Ramon Hernandez sail into center field, allowing Cirillo to advance to third with no outs and ending the Padres' streak of errorless innings at a record 101.

But Cirillo was caught napping off the bag when Bill Hall grounded to drawn-in Padres shortstop Khalil Greene, who fired to Blum to throw Cirillo out.

Three spectacular defensive plays by Brewers right fielder Geoff Jenkins kept Milwaukee in the game. Jenkins denied Greene a possible two-run double with a running catch in the second inning and made back-to-back gems in the sixth, robbing Phil Nevin against the right-field wall and diving to snare Hernandez's drive to shallow right.

"Jenkins killed us," Bochy said. "He was an absolute highlight film."