Kennedy's plate prowess continues Padres' interleague woes

SAN DIEGO -- Adam Kennedy was impressive with his bat and his glove.

Kennedy tied his career high with four hits, including a home run, and scored three times as the Oakland Athletics beat San Diego 6-3 on Saturday night, continuing the Padres' interleague woes.

Kennedy also made some nice plays at second base, including bare-handing Tony Gwynn Jr.'s drag bunt opening the Padres' first and throwing him out, then starting a double play in the eighth inning with Adrian Gonzalez coming up.

"From the first play of the game it was just his game," manager Bob Geren said. "He took away a hit from Tony Gwynn on a spectacular play."

Kennedy said his defense "hasn't been great so far this year, but I'm better than that I know that. Having a game like this, it wasn't the best for me but it was a good one."

Kennedy and Jack Cust hit back-to-back homers with two outs in the eighth off Greg Burke.

San Diego dropped to 1-7 in interleague play, the worst in the majors. On Wednesday night, they extended their big league record to 13 straight interleague losses by falling 4-3 to Seattle. The Padres snapped that streak by beating the Mariners 4-3 in 10 innings the following day.

Oakland won for the third time in four games.

Kennedy hit his sixth home run. Cust then drove a 1-0 pitch into the seats in left-center for his 13th.

Kennedy had given the A's a 4-3 lead an inning earlier. He hit a leadoff single against Cla Meredith (4-1), advanced on Cust's fly out and scored when Kurt Suzuki singled after Jason Giambi was intentionally walked.

"It was just one night. I had some decent at-bats," Kennedy said.

Michael Wuertz (4-1) got the win for the second night in a row, allowing one hit and striking out four in two innings.

Andrew Bailey got his eighth save in 12 chances. He allowed a single and a walk with two outs in the ninth before getting Kevin Kouzmanoff to fly out to center field.

Padres manager Bud Black's decision to bat speedy shortstop Everth Cabrera in the No. 9 spot for the second straight night paid off. In his second game back from the 60-day disabled list, Cabrera hit an RBI single in the third inning, then tripled with one out in the fifth and scored on Gwynn's bloop single over Kennedy's head to give the Padres a 3-2 lead.

After Cabrera's RBI single in the third, Gwynn walked to load the bases against Brett Anderson and David Eckstein singled to bring in another run. But Gonzalez struck out and Chase Headley hit into a double play.

"That was a big opportunity for us," Black said. "It was a nice start to the inning. A lot of good things happened. But their young guy threw a couple of good sliders to Adrian, then got a ball that Chase couldn't get the good part of the bat on. It looked promising, it just didn't happen for us."

Oakland chased starter Walter Silva in the sixth and tied the game on Ryan Sweeney's RBI single.

Kennedy hit an RBI single in the second to give the A's a 2-0 lead.

Silva, promoted from Triple-A Portland earlier Saturday, allowed three runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings. Anderson also allowed three runs on five hits, in five innings.

Game notes
It was Kennedy's 16th four-hit game. He also did it May 25 against Seattle. ... It was the second time this year the A's hit back-to-back homers. Bobby Crosby and Landon Powell did it June 3 at the Chicago White Sox. ... San Diego's Kyle Blanks, promoted from Triple-A on Friday night, made his first start, in left field, and singled with two outs in the sixth for his first big league hit. Black said Blanks will start again on Sunday. ... It was the first time in Eckstein's career that he grounded into two double plays and struck out in the same game. Coming into Friday night he had hit into only one double play, then did it three times in two games. ... Emilio Navarro, who at 103 is believed to be the oldest living professional baseball player, threw out the ceremonial first pitch as part of the Padres' annual salute to the Negro Leagues. Navarro, who lives in Puerto Rico, made the throw on the fly from about 25 feet to Padres utilityman Edgar Gonzalez. "I think I am in heaven now," Navarro said in perfect English shortly before the game.