SAN DIEGO — Barry Zito turned catcalls to cheers in his third year as a Giant, but a respectable season came to a sudden and painful end Friday night.

Zito was struck just below the left elbow by a line drive in the sixth inning of the Giants’ 7-2 victory over the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. The left-hander reflexively held both arms in front of his chest as he was struck by the ball, which bounded high in the air and landed beside the mound.
X-rays were negative, Zito was diagnosed with an elbow contusion, and he should be fine to make his next start. It helps that it won’t come for seven months.
With the pretense of the pennant race lifted, the Giants will use this final three-game series to evaluate younger players, chase a few milestones and puff up their winning record.
Making sure they didn’t go 0-for-2009 at Petco Park? That had to feel good, too.
Juan Uribe hit a tiebreaking home run in the seventh inning to begin a six-run rally as the Giants won their first game in seven tries by the light of the gaslamps here.
Pablo Sandoval hit his team-leading 24th homer in the fourth inning, and Buster Posey scored his first major league run in the seventh as the Padres kicked the ball around the infield.
The Giants knocked out former teammate Kevin Correia, who had entered with a streak of 23-plus scoreless innings — the longest active streak in the National League — before Sandoval took him deep.
Zito mostly cruised in a 1-1 game and had retired 14 of his last 15 batters before Adrian Gonzalez’s liner hit his pitching arm. He stalked around the mound and grimaced in obvious pain but appeared to tell trainers he was all right. He was escorted from the mound with a trainer elevating his arm.
Zito threw his glove against the dugout wall. He finished 10-13 with a 4.03 ERA, his best in three seasons after signing a seven-year, $126 million contract.
Another 1-plus innings and Zito would have inched his ERA below 4.00 for the first time as a Giant.
He wasn’t the only pitcher who walked off with an injury. Right-hander Sergio Romo’s knee appeared to lock up as he delivered a pitch to Gonzalez in the eighth. Romo persuaded trainers to let him continue, but he hunched over after he threw ball four to Gonzalez. He exited the game and was diagnosed with a mild right-knee sprain.
Not every Giant can exit with grace and fanfare, as Rich Aurilia did during his highly choreographed final start in Thursday’s home finale. Thursday’s game also might have been the final farewells for impending free agents Bengie Molina and Randy Winn, neither of whom will start a game in San Diego, manager Bruce Bochy said.
Molina’s sore left hand bothered him in the latter innings Thursday, but he might be available for a pinch at-bat over the weekend.
Winn had no physical issue, but Bochy told the veteran outfielder on the flight south that he planned to look at John Bowker and other outfielders. Bochy’s loyal adherence to Winn, usually in the third or fifth spots in the order, had been a chief source of complaints from critics — especially because Winn hasn’t hit a home run since April 26.
Winn acknowledged he might have made his final start as a Giant but said he didn’t take the field with any extra emotion Thursday.
“It might be. It might not be,” Winn said. “It would be easier to come up with an answer if you were 100 percent sure you weren’t coming back next year. But that’s not the case.”
While it’s widely assumed that the Giants will not re-sign Winn, even in a reserve role, the San Ramon Valley High graduate said he will instruct his agent to make his first call to team officials after the season.
“We’ll go from there,” he said. “I’ll take a wait-and-see approach. I would like to come back here. The organization has treated me great. Aside from that, I haven’t made a list of what we’d be looking for.”