Planets align as Padres finally have a seat at no-hitter table

No no-no, no more.

The franchise that waited more than half a century to corral pitching brilliance, a chase that started when The Who released the rock opera “Tommy” and Apollo 11 landed on the moon, became Major League Baseball’s last team to record a no-hitter.

Homegrown right-hander Joe Musgrove, 28, an El Cajon native who attended Grossmont High, wobbled the Rangers on Friday at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, with a dizzying array of pitches to give the Padres — the Padres! — a long-awaited zero in the opponents’ hit column in their 8,206th game.

The 3-0 win waylaid an exhausting wait.

“That’s my first no-hitter I’ve ever thrown in my life,” Musgrove said. “Pretty crazy that it comes on the big stage and I’m in a Padres uniform.”

The only baserunner came in the fourth, when Musgrove hit Rangers slugger Joey Gallo. That’s the same inning fill-in shortstop Ha-seong Kim fended off the biggest threat with a backhanded play in the hole off the bat of Isiah Kiner-falefa.

Musgrove erased the final 16, masterfully mixing in pitches ranging from 80 to 94 mph as he painted 112-pitch history.

“If it can be sweeter or any more special, for him to do it growing up in San Diego and this being his team, it’s about the perfect story,” manager Jayce Tingler said.

So rest easy, The Curse of Clay Kirby. The no-hit bid on July 21, 1970, was through eight in

nings before manager Preston Gomez lifted his pitcher for pinch hitter Cito Gaston as the Padres trailed 1-0. The team fell anyway, 3-0.

Given the Padres sat 20 games under .500 in a season limping toward 99 losses, frustrated fans shook heads to the point of neck injury.

San Diego pointed to that moment as Cubs fans pointed to goats and the Red Sox, Indians and White Sox fretted fates tied to the Bambino, Rocky Colavito and the Black Sox. The Padres waited … and waited … and waited … for half a century. Through Ray Kroc, through the f lying feathers of the San Diego Chicken, through more apparel changes than a Taylor Swift concert.

Then, in just his second start for his hometown team, Musgrove willed it all away.

“It almost seems like this is meant to be,” Musgrove said.

Padres Cy Young winner Randy Jones flirted with a pair of potential no-hitters, going 71⁄3 innings against Cincinnati on July 3, 1975, before coughing up a double to Bill Plummer. A month and a half earlier, Jones crafted a one-hit complete game over 10 innings to stop the Cardinals, 1-0. In that game, Luis Melendez’s seventh-inning single was the lone hit.

Eras feel completely mismatched, however, as relievers, long relievers, specialists and closers wait in today’s wings. Now, getting through six innings can feel like an accomplishment.

“You’re throwing 98, 99 mph, I can’t even fathom,” Jones said. “It’s a tall task with the load these guys put on themselves now. We would pace ourselves back then because you lose a little bit from the tank the last nine outs.

“Now it’s max effort from the get-go.”

When Mets pitcher Johan Santana threw that team’s first no-hitter on June 1, 2012, it left the Padres in baseball’s lonesome spotlight. The Mets’ drought ended at 8,019 games.

There have been 306 no-hitters in baseball history. The Marlins, who’ve only been in existence since 1993, own six. Journeyman Mike Fiers, now with the A’s, has two all by himself.

Still, Jones marveled that the law of averages never offered the Padres a tip of the no-hit cap. Until now.

“It blows my mind that things hadn’t aligned,” he said.

Considering all that conspired against Musgrove, the historic night felt all the more unimaginable and impressive. He entered the game with back tightness. The back-door cutter he throws dangerously leaked over the plate. The curveball missed his intended spots early. Drinking roughly a dozen bottles of water caused his bladder to beg for mercy in the final five innings.

Tingler, who carefully has monitored and managed pitch counts coming off a 60-game season, had to be wriggling in the dugout as well.

“You put your chips in, you get pot-committed and you go,” he said.

None of it, the circumstances or Rangers bats, derailed Musgrove — or history.

“I had no intention of coming out of that game,” he said.

For decades, the Padres came close to no-hitters but could not seal the deal. Jordan Lyles flirted with one in 2018. Chris Young neared the finish line three times, carrying one effort an out into the ninth in 2006. Not Jones. Not Kevin Brown. Not Jake Peavy, the Cy Young winner who inspired Musgrove to wear his No. 44 when he joined the organization.

On an unlikely and magical night, it took a pitcher who rooted for the team as a kid to allow San Diego to walk past the velvet rope and join the club.

“It’s one of those things you can’t explain,” former Padre Steve Garvey said. “They’ve had good pitchers. They’ve got good arms now. Guys aren’t built to go a complete game or 120 pitches now. You need a guy with 80 or 90 pitches going into the ninth inning.

“There’s a lot more going against a guy than the old days.”

Musgrove had 90 pitches through seven innings and 103 through eight. He needed just nine pitches in the ninth.

The Padres have produced 30 one-hitters. They’ve had five games head into the ninth without a blemish. They crept to within one out of history twice, Steve Arlin in 1972 against the Phillies and a combined shot in 2011 versus the Dodgers. Opponents have wiped out the Padres without allowing a hit 10 times, including Dock Ellis doing it, he maintained, while tripping on acid for the Pirates on June 12, 1970.

The cosmos flirted in cruel and unusual ways over all those decades.

Then came Friday. Then came Musgrove.

“It’s special as it gets,” Tingler said.

No no-no, no more.