San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
MORE STRONG PITCHING
On the anniversary of his no-hitter, Padres’ Musgrove has another fine effort against D-backs
Pitching on the one-year anniversary of his no-hitter, Joe Musgrove was merely just another really good Padres starter on Saturday night.
The big right-hander quickly allowed the first hit by one of the team’s starting pitchers this season. Then he allowed the first run.
“I let everybody down pretty early there,” he would joke later.
By the time Musgrove departed after six innings, he had surrendered two runs on five hits and continued a string of excellence begun by Yu Darvish and Sean Manaea the previous two nights.
Three relievers and two manufactured runs in the eighth inning and another in the ninth finished off a 5-2 victory over the Diamondbacks at Chase Field.
It was the Padres’ second straight win after a stunning walk-off loss on opening day. Saturday’s five runs matched their run total from the first two games. They broke a 2-2 tie after seven innings with timely, situational hitting and heady baserunning.
“We’ve talked about these type of games and what they’d look like early in the season,” manager Bob Melvin said. “One got away from us the first night. … To be able to come back and win a couple like that makes you feel good about being in those type of games.”
Steven Wilson got the win in his major league debut, as his scoreless seventh inning was followed by the Padres scoring twice off Ian Kennedy in the top of the eighth.
Manny Machado led off the inning with a single, stole second and went to third on a wild pitch with one out and Luke Voit up. Voit walked, and Eric Hosmer followed by sending a 107.5 mph grounder across the turf to second baseman Ketel Marte’s left. The ball ricocheted off his glove and into right field as Machado scored and Voit kept running to third. The extra base taken by the relatively lumbering Voit allowed him to run home and make it 4-2 on Austin Nola’s fly ball.
Pierce Johnson worked a scoreless eighth, and after the first bigleague singles by C.J. Abrams and Jose Azocar helped the Padres to a run in the ninth, Taylor Rogers protected a three-run lead for the second straight night for his second save.
“Our pitching staff, they have
been keeping us in games,” said Machado, who was 2for-4 with a walk. “They’re giving us those opportunities to go out there and put up some runs for them. Today was the first time we were able to string together some hits and had some big hits there.”
Musgrove allowed a run on two hits in the first inning and then retired 13 of the next 15 Arizona batters. He threw six pitches in the fourth inning and seven in the fifth.
Musgrove’s sixth inning lasted just 12 pitches, but it included a two-out home run by David Peralta that tied the game 2-2.
The Padres are the only team in the major leagues with three starters to have gone at least six innings. The Phillies have had both their starters go six. Six other teams have had one starter last that long.
With his teammates having provided the poetic leadin for Musgrove, the El Cajon native who on April 9, 2021, threw the only no-hitter in Padres history, he got the first out in the bottom of the first inning before Marte flared a single the other way into left field.
That brought to an end a record 13 hitless innings by Padres starting pitchers at the beginning of the season.
It was the first time the Diamondbacks got a hit before the seventh inning in the series. The double by Peralta that followed gave them their first run before the ninth inning.
The streak wasn’t going to last forever. It was shocking it went on as long as it did.
What Darvish and Manaea did was such a rarity it took the prolific baseball statisticians some extra time to make sure of the last time it has been done. After assuring on Friday night it was the first time in the expansion era (since 1961) two starters for the same team had gone at least six hitless innings in the first two games of a season, Elias Sports Bureau said Saturday it was the first time since 1901 it had happened in two starts of any length to begin a season.