The Galaxy (5-1-3), who moved into the top spot in the Western Conference, took a 1-0 lead in the 14th minute when Gabriel Pec used assists from Dejan Joveljic and Riqui Puig to score his second goal of the season.
Paintsil gave the Galaxy a two-goal lead when he used his right foot on a penalty kick to drill a shot to the bottom right corner of the net. Paintsil’s kick followed a hand ball penalty on San José midfielder Niko Tsakiris. Paintsil found the net in back-to-back matches and has four goals this season.
Paintsil notched his fourth assist of the season on a goal — a soft header — by defender Maya Yoshida to make it 3-0. Yoshida has two goals this season and three in a career spanning 21 starts over the last two seasons.
The Earthquakes (1-8-0) got on the scoreboard in the 32nd minute on the first goal of the season by defender Rodrigues. Cristian Espinoza set up Rodrigues’ second career goal.
Puig used assists from Pec and Joveljic to score what turned out to be the winner in the 56th minute, pushing the Galaxy’s lead to 4-1 with his third goal of the season.
San José again pulled to within two goals when Espinoza notched his second assist on a Benjamin Kikanović header in the 58th minute. It was the second goal this season for Kikanović and his first since the opener.
The Galaxy were forced to play a man down from the 70th minute on after defender Eriq Zavaleta was tagged with a red card, nine minutes after subbing in for Martín Cáceres. That led to a penalty-kick goal by Jeremy Ebobisse, who drew the foul on Zavaleta, and the Earthquakes trailed 4-3. It was the third score of the season for Ebobisse and his 10th in 15 career matches against the Galaxy.
John McCarthy totaled four saves for the Galaxy, who have 18 points and lead second-place Vancouver by two points.
William Yarbrough stopped three shots for the Earthquakes. Yarbrough has given up multiple goals in all nine starts in his first season with the club.
Joveljic has five goals and three assists in eight career matches against San Jose.
It was the 100th matchup between the two clubs in all competitions. The Galaxy lead the overall series 48-33-19. They improved to 39-28-17 in league play with a 5-0-1 mark in the last six meetings, including a 3-1 road win earlier this season.
San José has lost four in a row for the second time this season.
The Galaxy travel to play Austin FC on Saturday.