Padres Load Bases in 10th, But No Joy at Petco As Mighty Machado Grounds Out

Grae Kessinger replaced the ejected Jose Altuve and scored on Kyle Tucker’s single in the 10th inning to give the the Astros a wild 4-3 win against Padres on Tuesday.

Astros reliever Héctor Neris loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the 10th before getting Manny Machado to ground into a force play. With two on and one out, Fernando Tatis Jr. had struck out.

Machado had hit a tying two-run homer in the sixth.

Kessinger started the 10th as the automatic runner in place of Altuve, who was ejected along with manager Joe Espada after a crazy scene following the top of the ninth.

Altuve grounded out to third for the final out but apparently thought he had fouled the ball off his foot. He took off his left cleat and sock, which got him ejected by plate umpire Brennan Miller. Espada was tossed after continuing to argue.

Kessinger advanced on Yordan Alvarez’s groundout and scored on Tucker’s single to left off Adrian Morejon (2-2).

The Padres twice rallied to tie the game, first at 2-2 on Machado’s 27th homer with one out in the sixth and at 3-3 in the eighth when Tatis scored on Josh Hader’s two-out wild pitch.

Hader (8-7), a former Padre, came on to boos and was called for a pitch clock violation. After a lengthy delay it was announced there was no violation. Hader then threw the wild pitch that brought in Tatis.

The Padres failed to add to their wild-card lead over Arizona and remained 3 1/2 games behind Los Angeles, which lost, in the National League West.

When Machado homered to left-center, the sellout crowd of 44,553 at Petco Park rose to its feet as the slugger admired his 405-foot shot for several seconds, before tossing his bat aside and gesturing toward the Padres’ dugout as he began his trot.

Last week, Machado broke Nate Colbert’s 50-year-old club record of 163 homers. He now has 165 in his six seasons with the Padres.

Hunter Brown had retired nine straight batters before Tatis hit a leadoff single two batters ahead of Machado.

The Astros took a 3-2 lead in the eventful eighth. Yordan Alvarez doubled into the right-center gap with one out, advanced on a balk by Jason Adams while Kyle Tucker was batting. He scored on an Adams wild pitch that put Alex Bregman on with a walk.

The Astros took a 2-0 lead against Michael King in the fourth. Singles by Tucker and Bregman put runners on first and second before Jon Singleton lofted an opposite-field blooper to left for a run-scoring double. Jeremy Peña’s groundout brought in Bregman.

Brown allowed two runs and five hits in six innings. King struck out seven in seven innings. He was charged with two runs and five hits.

The Astros’ Framber Valdez (14-6, 2.91 ERA) and Padres’ Dylan Cease (13-11, 3.58 ERA) are scheduled to start the series finale at 3:40 p.m. Wednesday.