Grae Kessinger stepped in for the ejected Jose Altuve and scored on Kyle Tucker’s single in the 10th inning, leading the Houston Astros to a thrilling 4-3 victory over the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night.
Astros reliever Héctor Neris faced a tough situation in the bottom of the 10th, loading the bases with two outs. He managed to get Manny Machado to hit into a force play. Machado had earlier tied the game with a two-run homer in the sixth inning.
This marked Neris’s 18th save of the season.
Kessinger started the 10th inning as the automatic runner because Altuve had been ejected, along with manager Joe Espada, during a wild scene after the top of the ninth. Altuve had grounded out to third but thought he had fouled the ball off his foot.
He removed his left cleat and sock, which led to his ejection by plate umpire Brennan Miller. Espada was also thrown out for arguing about the call.
Kessinger moved up to second base on Yordan Alvarez’s groundout and scored on Tucker’s single to left off Adrian Morejon (2-2).
The Padres made two comebacks to tie the game. The first was at 2-2 when Machado hit his 27th homer with one out in the sixth. The second came in the eighth when Fernando Tatis Jr. scored on a wild pitch from Josh Hader with two outs, making it 3-3.
Hader (8-7) came into the game to boos from the crowd and was initially called for a pitch clock violation. After a delay, it was confirmed there was no violation, but Hader then threw a wild pitch that allowed Tatis to score.
Hader had been with the Padres from the 2022 trade deadline until last season. He upset fans when he mentioned last year that he was hesitant to pitch for more than three outs.
The Padres could not improve their wild-card position against Arizona and remained 3.5 games behind Los Angeles in the NL West.
Machado’s homer that tied the game at 2 got the sellout crowd of 44,553 on their feet.
