The San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals played four games at Petco Park this week. The Friars pitching staff held the visitors to exactly two runs in three of those games so it would have been extremely frustrating if San Diego had only won once.

That Nick Castellanos signing is looking really good right about now.

Down to their final strike and in danger of being shut out for the second time in three games, Castellanos put a jolt into Petco Park with a two-run home run off St. Louis closer Riley O’Brien to force extra innings, where the Padres got a game-winning sacrifice fly from Manny Machado to pull off a 3-2, series-splitting win on Mother’s Day.

Padres starter Walker Buehler continues to look like another solid mid-Spring Training pickup. Buehler set down the first 11 Cardinals hitters he faced before Alec Burleson lined a single to right field and Jordan Walker obliterated a curve ball into the top deck of the Western Metal Supply Building in left field to put St. Louis on top 2-0.

That was the only blip on Buehler’s radar. The veteran right-hander finished 6.0 innings allowing just three hits and striking out a pair. Ron Marinaccio and Bradgley Rodriguez kept it a 2-0 game by combining to set down nine straight.

Xander Bogaerts led off the 9th with a single. At that point he had two of the Padres three hits (Jackson Merrill, who also walked twice, delivered the other). He was standing on 3rd base when Castellanos launched a missile 389 feet into the left field bleachers, dancing up the 1st base line as the Friar Faithful erupted.

In what was now a battle of the bullpens the Padres still had all their high-leverage arms available. Jeremiah Estrada and Adrian Morejon combined to keep the Cards off the board in the top of the 10th and Gordon Graceffo did not have a good time in the bottom half. After intentionally walking Merrill he walked Fernando Tatis Jr. to load the bases and set up Machado’s walkoff sac fly that brought home Ramon Laureano with the winning run.

San Diego takes Monday off before starting a three-game series in Milwaukee against the Brewers on Tuesday night.