Pirates slug 4 home runs in 8-4 victory against Padres

Carlos Santana shrugged when he was reminded that he hit one of his two home runs Monday night after fouling a pitch off his foot.

He never mentioned the pain he ignored while lifting the baseball into the air, even though he stepped gingerly out of the batter’s box at the outset of his home run trot.

“I tried to stay focused and get a good swing,” he said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show after the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 8-4 victory against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.

Actually, he managed three good swings in what turned out to be the Pirates’ third victory in the past five games, homering twice against Padres veteran pitcher Yu Darvish, ripping a double later and driving in four runs. The multi-homer game was the 16th of his 14-year career. He came into the game with only three hits in his previous 22 at-bats against Darvish.

The timing of Santana’s offensive outburst may raise questions for those who believe the 37-year-old Pirates first baseman/cleanup hitter may be on the trade market with the deadline approaching Tuesday. Could he fetch more young talent for the Pirates’ rebuild?

Those thoughts were not first on manager Derek Shelton’s mind — if at all — after the game when he was asked what Santana’s leadership and production means to the team. He has 11 home runs and is tied with Jack Suwinski for the team lead in RBIs with 52.

“He means a ton to us,” Shelton said, “especially right now as young as we are and young as we are with younger Latin players. It’s one of the reasons that we identified him this offseason.

“But tonight, big night, came in and really swung the bat well and kind of propelled us to a victory.”

There was, of course, much more to the victory for the Pirates (44-56), who have defeated the Padres (48-53) in all four games this seasons.

Rookie Quinn Priester made his second career start and worked 5 1/3 innings, responding well after Ha-Seong Kim homered in the first inning. Priester followed up by throwing three scoreless innings before allowing two runs in the fifth on Kim’s second homer and another in the sixth. Overall, he gave up four runs, four hits and three walks. He struck out four.

“Definitely something I’ve been working a long time for,” he said.

Priester was a big contributor to what Shelton called “a complete game.”

“There were a lot of really good things that happened,” he said.

• Suwinski was a big part of the victory, finishing a triple short of the cycle while hitting his team-leading 21st home run.

• Andrew McCutchen singled, stole a base and walked in front of both of Santana’s home runs. The steal of second base was McCutchen’s 10th this season, matching his number of home runs. That makes him the third Pirates player in his age-36 season with 10/10 in those two departments and the first since Lee Lacy (12/21) in 1984.

• Rookie shortstop Liover Peguero joined Suwinski and Santana with multi-hit games. He belted his first career home run in the fourth inning — the third of four against Darvish — and his infield single scored the final Pirates run in the fifth. The eight runs were the most the Pirates scored since a 9-7 victory against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 4.

“We were fortunate Darvish left some balls up and we didn’t miss them,” Shelton said.

Peguero also made an outstanding play in the third inning when he went deep into the hole at shortstop to snare Kim’s groundball and make a strong throw for the out at first base where Santana made a slick pick-up.

“We had some fantastic plays in the field with Santana and (Peguero),” Priester said. “So, trust those guys and trust our bats to get it done, too. It gave me a lot of room to throw strikes.”

But there also was some bad news Monday night that could have lasting ramifications. Second baseman Tucupita Marcano suffered a ligamentous injury to his right knee while trying unsuccessfully to avoid a tag at third base in the fifth inning.

Marcano was on first base after a single and tried to take third on Peguero’s RBI infield single. The throw from Padres first baseman Alfonso Rivas beat Marcano, who tried to avoid the tag and stepped awkwardly onto the bag.

“That’s concerning when you see a young player who goes down, the pain that he was in,” said Shelton, who immediately rushed onto the field with two trainers. “Anytime you see a player go down like that, it’s extremely unfortunate.

“When he (tried to avoid the tag), either his knee or his ankle didn’t go the right way.”

The Pirates said there will be further testing on Marcano’s knee Tuesday to help determine the extent of the injury.