LOS ANGELES — Carlos Quentin took care of Zack Greinke. His San Diego Padres teammates handled Greinke’s replacement.
San Diego knocked around stand-in Chris Capuano for two innings before he left with a strained calf and Jason Marquis shut down the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 9-2 win on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.
Knocking around the Dodgers seems to be a growing theme for San Diego: The Padres have scored 29 runs in a 3-2 start against Los Angeles and 25 runs in going 1-8 against Colorado and the New York Mets.
San Diego has now won two straight over the Dodgers after starting 2-10.
“We’ve got to keep it going,” San Diego manager Bud Black said. “This is a game of consistency. This is a game of putting streaks together, putting games together, putting at-bats, putting pitches, all those things together consistently. Playing defense. That’s what we’ve done the last two nights, and that’s resulted in two wins.”
San Diego took a 6-3 win over the Dodgers on Monday night with some timely late-inning hitting.
On Tuesday night, San Diego struck from all over and at all times.
The Padres banged out 15 hits, five batters had multi-hit games and San Diego scored runs in five innings.
Alexi Amarista led the way as he collected three hits and four RBI, and Yonder Alonso went 3-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs. Chris Denorfia added three hits and two runs and Kyle Blanks and Nick Hundley each had two hits, with Hundley picking up two RBIs.
“I know we go into each game with a game plan,” Black said. “You’d like to see it work every night. I think it’s just coincidental. … But tonight was a good sign, and last night was a good sign as well.”
The efficient offense let Marquis shift into cruise control, as he has so often against Los Angeles.
Marquis’ career 2.53 ERA at Dodger Stadium ranks fourth among active pitchers — tops among visiting pitchers — and he was at his best again on Tuesday, allowing three hits and one run while striking out five in 7 2/3 innings.
“Great atmosphere, they do a great job on the mound — I feel comfortable on the ground, the crew does a great job,” Marquis said about the reasons for his success at Dodger Stadium. “My ball moves the way it should here. Once you start getting rolling in a place, you tend to have confidence and trust your stuff a bit more.”
Added Black: “The first couple innings, he got through it, but I thought his command and control was a little bit off. But he got his outs. I think he found his delivery, found his release point and started making consecutive pitches, the middle part of the game, time after time.”
Marquis’ counterpart, Capuano, was thrust into the starter’s role after Quentin knocked Greinke out for eight weeks with a broken collarbone during a skirmish after being hit by a pitch.
The rustiness showed as San Diego pounced on Capuano early.
Capuano lasted just two full innings before he was pulled for Matt Guerrier after walking Jesus Guzman to open the third.
The Padres moved station to station in the first, scoring four runs on two singles and a based-loaded walk. Yonder singled home Denorfia first to put San Diego on the board, then scored on an RBI walk to Hundley. Amarista followed with a two-run single, scoring Guzman and Blanks.
Hundley picked up another RBI in the third, scoring Guzman on a sacrifice fly.
The Dodgers responded with a run in the bottom of the third on a Mark Ellis sacrifice fly that scored Juan Uribe.
“It’s tough when you’re behind by a big margin early in the game especially,” Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said. “Really just bear down and try to claw back in and try to chip away. But most importantly, you have to keep putting zeroes up, and we weren’t able to do that today.”
NOTES: Los Angeles won two of three games in San Diego in the team’s first series of the season last week. The Dodgers closed the series with back-to-back one-run wins after dropping the opener 9-3. … Los Angeles won last year’s season series with San Diego 11-7. … Dodgers pitcher Ted Lilly (shoulder) made his third rehab start of the season for the Class A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes on Tuesday, allowing four runs (three earned) in five innings. … San Diego entered the game with 24 doubles, third in the majors. … Adrian Gonzalez, a former Padre, entered the game with a National League-leading 18 hits. He and Crawford rank third in the NL with .396 batting averages.