SAN DIEGO -- Brian Giles gave Clay Hensley the margin
for error he needed.
Giles hit a grand slam in the fourth inning and Hensley picked
up his first win as a starter as the San Diego Padres posted a
7-4 victory over the New York Mets to salvage a split of a
four-game series.
Rookie Josh Barfield had a solo homer in the first among his
three hits for the Padres, who improved to 3-6 at home this
season.
"This last week, I've been feeling a lot better at the plate,"
said Barfield, who has four three-hit games in four of his last
six games. "It's a great win for us, because we didn't play well
at home in the opening (homestand). To split against a team
like the Mets, we'll take it, even though we would've preferred
to win (the series)."
Moved into the rotation last week in place of struggling
righthander Dewon Brazelton, Hensley (1-1) cruised through the
first four innings before receiving some much-needed breathing
room from Giles.
"My arm felt good, and it's starting to get back into shape,"
said Hensley, who threw 48 of 78 pitches for strikes. "For the
most part, I thought I made some good pitches. I've still got a
lot of work to do, a lot of conditioning. I still feel like I'm
a little behind stamina-wise, but I'm headed in the right
direction."
Hensley and Barfield each delivered a two-out single around a
walk by Dave Roberts in the fourth to set the stage for Giles,
who lined a 3-2 pitch from Mets starter Victor Zambrano just
over the right field wall for his fifth career grand slam and a
5-0 lead.
"It was a sinker, the same pitch he threw me in the second
at-bat that I flew out to center on, but I put a better swing on
it this time," Giles said. "Sometimes (Zambrano) struggles to
get command of the sinker and we knew we had to get him up in
the zone and make him throw strikes. When he did make mistakes
out over the plate, we put pretty good swings on them."
New York began to rally against a tiring Hensley in the sixth,
chasing the righthander with a pair of RBIs singles from David
Wright and Cliff Floyd, who both scored on Endy Chavez's two-run
base hit off reliever Scott Cassidy to draw within 5-4.
However, Alan Embree struck out Kazuo Matsui to escape the sixth
and got through the seventh.
"I would've like to see Matsui be a little bit more aggressive
there," Mets manager Willie Randolph said. "It was a game that,
with a few little twists here and there, we could've made it
pretty interesting. We kept fighting back. My team is always
going to play hard."
Scott Linebrink pitched a perfect eighth and Trevor Hoffman
worked around a one-out single in the ninth for his third save
in as many chances.
Zambrano (1-2) was tagged for five runs and seven hits with
three walks in four innings. The erratic righthander has
surrendered five home runs in his last two starts, spanning just
nine innings.
"I don't look at it as him being on trial, but you've got to go
out and make pitches," Randolph said. "He's just going to have
to work on some things. You can't make mistakes on the fat part
of the bat. The bottom line is, he's going to have to find a
way to rectify that."
Former Met Mike Cameron made his debut for the Padres in center
field - the site of his season-ending collision in 2005 - and
went hitless in three at-bats with two walks.