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Tony Graffanino smacks a two-run homer to tie the game in the eighth inning on Saturday. (Denis Poroy/AP)

Brown, batting just .216 for the Royals, already had struck out in two at-bats against Eaton. Leading off the eighth inning, Brown found himself behind in the count, 1-2.

Then -- pop.

Brown, a left-handed hitter, lashed a double off the left-field wall to dash Eaton's bid to pitch the first no-hit game in Padres history. They have gone 5,461 games without one.

The drive sailed high over Kerry Robinson, who entered the game an inning earlier as a defensive replacement.

"He was on tonight -- he was just sneaky fast," Brown said. "And then in my third at-bat, he didn't give me any offspeed stuff or anything. He just came with straight fastballs. He came middle away a little bit and I was able to drive it."

Ruben Mateo promptly drove a double to center that scored Brown. With that, Padres manager Bruce Bochy removed Eaton and he left to a standing ovation from new PETCO Park's largest crowd, 43,152.

Eaton didn't even get a victory from his valiant effort, as the Royals rallied to tie before losing, 5-4, on Robinson's double and Khalil Greene's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth.

Naturally, in this Royals season of weird occurrences, that run came with a very odd twist. As Robinson took off for home from third, right fielder Matt Stairs got off a strong throw that hit first baseman Harvey, the cutoff man, squarely in the back as he crouched with his eyes on the plate.

"I was looking at the play," Harvey said. "I wasn't thinking about cutting it. It was a do-or-die (play), but I obviously should've been watching it. It's pretty simple. It's my fault, my bad."

Harvey, stunned, rolled over on the grass, as if shot.

"I was aiming for his head," Stairs said with a grin.

At times like this, when you've just lost for the ninth time in 10 games, you find humor where you can.

Catcher John Buck wasn't sure if Stairs' throw would've nailed the fleet Robinson.

"It's hard to say. He's fast," Buck said. "It would've been a great throw -- it was on line. It'd been right there for me."

Instead, it drilled Harvey.

Getting back to Brown, he even thought he might get a home run on his no-hit-squelching drive.

"With two strikes, I was just basically trying to stay alive out there," he said. "I knew I hit it good, on the line. When I looked at Kerry Robinson, I thought it had a chance to go."

After Mateo's RBI double, Akinori Otsuka relieved Eaton. While Otsuka was in the process of issuing a walk and two groundouts, Mateo moved across the plate and the Padres' lead was shaved to 4-2.

Tony Graffanino belted a two-run homer off Otsuka for a 4-4 tie. It was just the second for Graffanino; his other came on April 13 at Chicago.

But against Eaton, Graffanino was 0-for-3 with a strikeout.

"He was fastball, slider and on the corners," he said. "It didn't seem like he wanted to throw anything in the middle of the plate, that's for sure. He had a little crossfire and his fastball was just darting in there. For seven innings, he was just lights-out."

In these offensively-challenged times for the Royals, it doesn't take much to give them a glimmer of hope. And this marked their second four-run inning in two nights.

They summoned up a four-run rally on Friday night in the ninth inning. It fell short, but it was the biggest inning they'd had since June 23.

So it was with some consternation that they couldn't even follow up with a hit for the first seven innings against Eaton. Harvey, hit by a pitch in the first and walked in the fourth, was the Royals' only baserunner.

Then, in the seventh, Harvey scorched a rocket right at Eaton. With the ball headed toward his nose, Eaton flicked up his glove to make the catch and sank down with a sigh of relief.

His no-hitter and his face were intact.

"I didn't crush it, but I hit it hard enough to get through," Harvey said.

Eaton kept his composure, getting Stairs on a grounder to second. Then he cut down Angel Berroa with his 10th strikeout.

"It was pretty impressive," said Darrell May, who took the loss. "I was taking notes, trying to learn something."

The Royals finished the game with just the three hits they had in the eighth inning.

After the game, a groundskeeper wondered if the Royals would take batting practice on Sunday.

"Definitely," Pena said.

Dick Kaegel is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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