Padres score right away this time to beat Brewers, clinch third straight series win

MILWAUKEE — Comebacks are exciting. Resilience and fight and all that are nice traits for a team to possess.

Scoring early and playing ahead throughout a game is better. It is ostensibly easier, at least.

For the first time in a while, the Padres went that route Tuesday, scoring four runs before the game’s 10th pitch had been thrown and effectively cruising to a 6-3 victory.

With that, they are two games above .500 (11-9) for the first time this season, have their first three-game winning streak and have won three consecutive series.

It had been nearly two weeks since the Padres won a game in which they never trailed, and Tuesday came on the heels of a stretch of seven games in which the Padres notched four comeback victories — all after trailing by multiple runs in the fifth inning or later.

It was the Brewers who had to try to do that Tuesday.

All they could manage was a first-inning run on a two-out walk and double against Dylan Cease, who worked around his other four walks and allowed just two hits while striking out seven in six innings.

Four relievers finished out the game with just a bit of drama.

The Padres immediately jumped on Brewers starter Wade Miley.

Xander Bogaerts began the game with a flared single to right field, Fernando Tatis Jr. lined a single to center field and Jurickson Profar reached on a sacrifice bunt when first baseman Jake Bauers dropped an underhand toss from Miley’s glove.

The bases were loaded, and Miley had thrown four pitches.

Manny Machado followed by ripping the third pitch he saw on for line drive that ended with an out but drove in a run and did the most to drive Miley from the game.

That is because the ball came off Machado’s bat at 107.7 mph and directly into Miley’s knee. While Miley remained on the ground holding his knee, the ball was picked up along the first base line by Bauers, who tagged Machado while Bogaerts ran home.

Miley remained in the game after being examined on the mound and a few throws to test his leg.

Two pitches later, Ha-Seong Kim smashed a ball down the left-field line for a three-run homer.

They would not score again in the inning, though Miley had to throw 21 more pitches.

Luis Campusano reached when third baseman Sal Frelick sailed a throw over Bauers’ head. Miley then appeared to pick off Campusano but was instead called for a balk when home plate umpire Angel Hernandez ruled he leaned more toward home before throwing to first. And in between two strikeouts, Eguy Rosario got an infield single on a slow dribbler that died on the dirt down the third base line.

Miley made it two more innings, but he looked clunky moving off the mound to field a bunt in the third inning and was replaced at the start of the fourth.

The Padres were hitless in seven consecutive at-bats with runners in scoring position in the middle of the game, failing to get a runner home from third with one out in the third and fifth innings.

In the seventh, they loaded the bases for the third time in the game and.

Tatis led off the inning with his third single of the game, Profar walked and Machado singled. After Kim popped out, Campusano flared a single to right field that scored Tatis. And after Rosario struck out, Jackson Merrill avoided a double play by beating out the throw to first, which allowed Profar to score and make it 6-1.

Adrian Morejon began the seventh appearing like he might be able to work multiple innings, striking out the first two batters before yielding a run on three consecutive singles.

Yuki Matsui replaced Morejon and, after walking a batter to load the bases, struck out Bauers to end the inning.

Jhony Brito entered to start the eighth and got four outs before walking a batter and being replaced by Wandy Peralta The left-hander allowed the inherited runner to score on a single and a fielder’s choice before closing out the victory.