SAN DIEGO — Grae Kessinger replaced the ejected Jose Altuve and scored on Kyle Tucker’s single in the 10th inning to give the AL West-leading Houston Astros a wild 4-3 win against the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night.
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. Machado had hit a tying two-run homer in the sixth.
Neris earned his 18th save.
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 Fernando Tatis Jr. scored on Josh Hader’s two-out wild pitch.
Hader (8-7) 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 a wild pitch that brought in Tatis.
Hader was with the Padres from the 2022 trade deadline through last year before leaving as a free agent. He drew the ire of San Diego fans when he said late last season that he was reluctant to get more than three outs.
The Padres failed to add to their wild-card lead over Arizona and remained 3 1/2 games behind Los Angeles in the NL West.
The Padres tied it at 2 when Machado homered to left-center, bringing the sellout crowd of 44,553 to its feet.
Machado admired his 405-foot shot for several seconds, tossed his bat aside and gestured toward the Padres’ dugout as he began his trot.
Last week, Machado broke Nate Colbert’s 50-year-old club record of 163 homers and 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 and scored on 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 medium 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.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Astros: Placed OF Ben Gamel on the 10-day injured list with a broken left leg three days after he ran into the wall at Angel Stadium while making a running catch. Gamel will be out indefinitely. C César Salazar was recalled from Triple-A Sugar Land.
Padres: Luis Arraez was back at DH despite jamming a knee into home plate while being thrown out Monday night.
UP NEXT
Astros LHP Framber Valdez (14-6, 2.91 ERA) and Padres RHP Dylan Cease (13-11, 3.58 ERA) are scheduled to start the series finale on Wednesday.