SAN DIEGO — Stretching across the center-field grass and painted on the front of the press box and sewn on the back of the jacket his widow wore as she threw out the ceremonial first pitch were the initials "PS" inside a heart that will represent a franchise's tribute to their late beloved owner.

"I can feel his presence here today," Padres manager Mike Shildt said Thursday, referring to Peter Seidler, who died in November. "He's clearly with us in spirit memory. We're gonna honor him today, of course, and he'll be in our hearts all season."

And so it was perfect that the morning haze that hovered over downtown burned off in time to make for a magnificent view from above. And it was maybe fitting, then, that the Padres beat the Giants, 6-4, at the brimming Petco Park.

Seidler "always preached about baseball gods shining down on us, and he's one of those guys now," Manny Machado said before the game. "He's gonna be looking down on us seeing the tremendous thing that we're gonna be doing here. We're going to continue his legacy at the highest level."

Something was working in the Padres' favor Thursday.

A team that missed the playoffs in large part because it could not battle back or get runners home in big situations did both on Thursday.

After falling behind in the third inning, they took the lead with two runs in the fifth, fell behind in the top of the seventh and took the lead for good in the bottom of that inning.

Xander Bogaerts drove in a run with a single, and Jake Cronenworth had a two-run double in the seventh.

Robert Suarez surrendered a home run in the ninth before closing out his second save of the season.

Neither of the starting pitchers — the Padres' Yu Darvish nor the Giants' Brandon Webb — allowed a runner through two innings.

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