MYERS CARRIES LOAD
He hits home run and ties career high with five RBIs; Darvish goes seven innings to get first win as Padre
The Padres aren’t hitting as well as they believe they can.
But they also believe that is OK for now.
Patience comes easier when wins keep coming, and that is what’s happening for the Padres thanks to excellent pitching and just enough offense from seemingly different players every game.
It was Wil Myers on Monday night who made sure the Padres continued to feast on baseball’s also-ran appetizers on their first road trip of the season.
Myers tied a career high with five RBIs, and Yu Darvish allowed one run in seven innings in a 6-2 victory over the Pirates at cold
Pirates
and damp PNC Park.
It was the third time Myers has driven in five runs in a game in his career and the second time he has provided the game-winning RBI this season. The Padres have had five different players with a gamewinning hit.
They have the major leagues’ second-best record (8-3) behind the Dodgers (8-2) despite three of the players they expect to be major contributors having not quite heated up. Manny Machado is batting .244, which is 109 points higher than Tommy Pham. Fernando Tatis Jr. was 3-for-18 before
he went on the injured list with a shoulder injury.
“That just shows you the team we have,” Myers said. “It’s a certain guy each night. I know there are certain guys not hitting. But Manny can go off and hit five homers in three games and win us those three games. Tommy is the same way. He can go off and hit five doubles in two games and drive in runs. Each guy we have in the lineup has the ability to take over a game. And when you fill out a lineup with guys like that, each and every night you’re going to find a guy who gets hot. And that’s what makes a great team is a lineup that’s deep.”
After sweeping three games in Texas against the Rangers, who had the worst record in the American League in 2020, the Padres came east to play four games against the team that had the
worst record in the National League last season.
“The most important thing and what we want to see all year is we want to be a team that continues to improve,” manager Jayce Tingler said. “We're seeing some improvements in some areas. As far as winning these games, every game up here is incredibly tough.”
Myers was the difference Monday. He drove in one run with a soft single in the first inning, two more with a 421foot home run in the sixth and the last two on a groundball single up the middle in the seventh.
The unique thing about all three of his hits is that they came with at least one runner in scoring position, a discipline in which the Padres have mostly failed.
In the seven games leading up to Monday, the Padres were 8-for-46 (.174) with runners on second and/or third base. Aside from Myers going 3-for-3, the rest of the Padres were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position Monday night.
“We're going to have different guys doing it,” Tingler said. “… That's who we are and what we're about. What's nice is when he's getting those hits, we're having guys on in front of him. We know we're going to go in cycles or spurts where maybe a guy or two carries us for two or three weeks, but the strength in our team is going to be our depth.”
The Padres pitching has been more than good enough to make up for any offensive shortcomings.
The staff 's collective 2.00 ERA is best in the majors. Darvish lowered the starters' ERA to 2.45, and the bullpen's ERA swelled to 1.00 after Austin Adams allowed a run in the eighth inning.
Darvish gave up just three hits Monday, retiring 13 of the final 14 batters he faced to earn his first victory with the Padres.
It was the ninth time in his past 18 starts (dating to 2019) in which Darvish went at least seven innings. The only two times he didn't go at least six innings in that span were his first start of 2020 and his first start this season.
After allowing four runs in 42⁄3 innings on opening day, Darvish has allowed two runs in 13 innings over his past two starts.
Given that Padres relievers combined for five innings Saturday and 81⁄3 innings Sunday after starter Adrian Morejon left with a forearm strain, his outing was welcome, if not absolutely necessary.
“We were obviously short-handed in the bullpen,” Tingler said. “For Yu to give us seven innings was absolutely huge.”
And it was up to the offense to make it easier for Tingler to allow Darvish to go that long.
After a delay of 20 minutes following a steady afternoon rain, Darvish and Vista High alumnus Trevor Cahill were spinning dual gems through five innings.
Cahill, who struck out eight, was done after that, lifted for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the fifth after throwing 82 pitches.
Darvish was at just 64 pitches at that point, but a 1-1 game made it uncertain he would get too much further.
Myers took care of that in the sixth, following Machado's walk and Eric Hosmer's ground out by breaking the 1-1 tie with a two-run homer to the “P” in the hedges that spell “PIRATES” on a hill beyond center field.
Pham, who had been hitless in his previous 16 atbats, followed with a single and scored from first base on Victor Caratini's double to the gap in left-center field.
“It was awesome to see the guys — we were in a 1-1 fight, they knew we were short-handed, and how hard they fought for Darvish to get some runs,” Tingler said.
All the Padres' runs in that inning were charged to Pirates reliever Luis Oviedo.
Myers' final two RBIs came in the seventh after Jurickson Profar worked another walk with one out and Machado moved him to third and then stole second.
His first one was in the first inning, as he drove in Jake Cronenworth with a broken-bat flare to left field.
“I definitely think we're taking baby steps forward,” Tingler said. “The pitching and defense are tightening up. I really like a lot of things we're doing offensively. Tonight, we finally started to get some multi-run innings. The main thing is we've got a lot of guys contributing.”