9 Padres pitchers blank Cardinals, reach NLDS
Craig Stammen and eight fellow relievers combined on a fourhitter in a brilliant, recordsetting effort that sent the San Diego Padres over the St. LouisCardinals 4-0 Friday night in the deciding Game 3 of their National League wild-card series.
The Padres won a postseason series for the first time in 22 years and advanced to face the NL West rival Los Angeles Dodgers in the division series at Arlington, Texas, starting Tuesday.
The nine pitchers marked the most used in a nine-inning shutout in any big league game since 1901.
With starters Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet unavailable due to injuries suffered in their final regular-season starts, rookie manager Jayce Tingler was forced to tap the Padres’ already-stressed bullpen and it came through magnificently. San Diego became the first team in baseball history to use eight ormore pitchers in three straight postseason games.
Trevor Rosenthal, who started his career with the Cardinals, struck out the side in the ninth and the Padres began to celebrate in empty Petco Park. MARLINS2, CUBS0 » Garrett Cooper homered against Yu Darvish in a two-run seventh, hard- throwing rookie Sixto Sánchez dominated for five innings and Miami won its first playoff series in 17 years, beating Chicago to complete a two-game wild card series sweep.
Miami will face Atlanta in theNLDivision Series in Houston starting Tuesday.
Led by manager Don Mattingly and CEO Derek Jeter, theMarlins remained unbeaten in all seven postseason series they have played following triumphs in the 1997 and 2003 NL Championship and World Series.
GIBSON, FEARED PITCHER
FORCARDINALS, DIESAT84 » Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, the dominating St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who won a record seven consecutive World Series starts and set a modern standard for excellence when he finished the 1968 seasonwith a 1.12ERA, died Friday. He was 84.
The Cardinals confirmed Gibson’s death shortly after losing to SanDiego 4- 0 in the NL playoffs. Gibson had long been illwith pancreatic cancer in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
Gibson’s death came on the 52nd anniversary of perhaps his most overpowering performance, when he struck out a World Series record 17 batters in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series against Detroit.