“I’m so excited,” said Dahl, who essentially won the final bench spot with a strong spring. “Just thankful for this opportunity and just glad to put the team on the board right there. I’m still fired up. Still shaking.”

In a span of six pitches in the bottom of the ninth inning, a pinch-hitter hitter brought the Padres back and the No.9 hitter won the game.

Dahl batted for Jose Azocar to start the inning against Arizona right-hander Scott McGough and hit an 0-1 splitter over the wall in left-center field.

Kim followed with a blast on a 3-1 slider.  Watch Kim’s homerun,

“I knew the pitcher wasn’t gonna walk me, he was gonna attack me,” Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae. “So I was just sitting on something in the strike zone, and it came and it felt great after that.”

Kim flicked his bat away and grabbed his helmet from his head as he took off in a spring around the bases. His teammates crowded at home plate to await him. As the crowd chanted his name, Kim did a television interview, which was interrupted by a shower of ice water and gatorade from two coolers carried by Xander Bogaerts, Juan Soto and Azocar.

“Very, very cold,” Kim said.

The last-moment homers gave the Padres their third consecutive victory and made sure some firsts were not wasted.

The Padres got a solid five innings from Ryan Weathers in his first start of the season, Soto’s first home run of the season and Manny Machado’s dribbler off the first base bag.

Evan Longoria’s first home run as a member of the Diamondbacks, off Steven Wilson in the ninth inning, gave the visitors a 4-3 lead in the opener of a two-game series at Petco Park.

It was the first non-sellout in five games at the ballpark this season, a predictable outcome given the night of the week and the opponent and the history happening in Houston where the San Diego State basketball team was playing in its first NCAA Tournament final.

Soto’s homer just cleared the wall in right-center field, giving the Padres a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

The Diamondbacks quickly tied the game the old-fashioned way, with a string of singles against Weathers.

Longoria led off the second inning with a grounder up the middle that Kim snagged with a dive, turned and threw on a bounce to first base, where Jake Cronenworth could not make the catch. Corbin Carroll’s line drive to center field move Longoria to second, and both advanced two bases on Nick Ahmed’s single.

A double-play grounder by Gabriel Moreno scored Carroll.

The Padres retook the lead in a way that was not old-fashioned, because the go-ahead run scored on a single that certainly would have been the inning’s third out in any previous season.

Rougned Odor’s lead-off double, lined to the gap in left-center for his first hit as a member of the Padres, was followed by two outs and then a walk by Soto. That brought up Machado, who dribbled a ball at 42.2 mph down the first-base line, where the ball bounced off the inner corner of the bag and caromed left and into right field as Odor raced home.

For more than 120 years, before the bases were increased by three inches, the ball would have been an easy play for first baseman Christian Walker.

Both pitchers navigated their first 1-2-3 inning in the fourth.

Weathers finished his night by retiring the three Diamondbacks he faced in the fifth inning in order as well.

Bogaerts’ two-out double kept Nelson from doing the same. But the fifth ended on a groundout by Cronenworth.

Brent Honeywell made his Padres debut at the start of the sixth and ran the streak of Diamondbacks batters retired to 10, then Ramona High alumnus Cole Sulser replaced Nelson and set the Padres down in order in the bottom of the inning.

Honeywell gave up his first run with the Padres when Carroll led off the seventh with a home run on a line and over the right field wall that tied the game 3-3.

The Padres could not capitalize on a pair of two-out walks by lead-off batter Trent Grisham and Soto in the seventh inning, as Machado flied out on the first pitch he saw from new reliever Miguel Castro and Bogaerts watched an 0-2 slider in the zone.

Wilson worked a perfect eighth for the Padres and got the first out of the ninth before Longoria sent a ball over the left field wall.

The Padres’ 12 walk-off victories in 2022 were third-most in the league. Jorge Alfaro, who provided the decisive RBI in five of those, is gone.

Monday was a time for new heroes, a newcomer to the team and a player who got his first career walk-off.

“In the ninth last year was kind of a theme for us — ninth inning walk offs here at home,” manager Bob Melvin said. “So glad we got our first.”