FRIARS REBOUND WITH SHUTOUT OF D-BACKS
Clevinger, Martinez help on mound with shutout, Cronenworth has 3 hits
The Padres followed a painful rarity with something they do fairly often.
The day after seeing a six-run lead evaporate in the final three innings of what became a walk-off loss, the Padres shut out the Diamondbacks 4-0 at Chase Field on Wednesday afternoon to earn a split of the two-game series here.
“These guys have been all year really good about responding to tough losses,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “That’s not a surprise.”
They rebounded Wednesday with Mike Clevinger and Nick Martinez combining to throw the Padres’ 10th shutout of the season, which is tied for third most in the major leagues.
They headed to Los Angeles on Wednesday, hoping to turn around their fortunes there as well.
The Padres, who have lost six straight games at Dodger Stadium, are 1½ games behind the Dodgers as the teams begin a four-game series tonight. It will be the Padres’ first visit to L.A. this season and just the second series between the two teams atop the National League West.
By this time last season, the Padres were 7-3 in games against the Dodgers, only to lose the final nine games between the teams. With the lesson of a 162-game season having been harshly driven home, they continue to maintain for the most part that this series has no real extra significance.
But there simply is more at stake in this stretch in which the Padres follow the two here against the Diamondbacks by playing 15 games against NL West teams in their 17 games leading up to the All-Star
break.
“They’re a little bigger,” Jake Cronenworth acknowledged. “They do affect the standings a little differently. You lose a game, you lose a game. On certain nights now we lose a game, somebody else loses a game, it’s even.”
The Padres are 8-4 since June 17, but there has been little change because the Dodgers are 7-5 in that span. Depending on how the weekend goes at Chavez Ravine, the Padres could be ahead in the NL West by as many as 2½ games or behind by as many as 5½.
They at least were able to head to L.A. having stopped a losing streak at three games and move past Tuesday’s jarring result.
A major league team loses a game in which it squanders a sixrun lead once every 200 games or so. The Padres were one of six teams to have it happen to them this season, when Sean Manaea and three relievers let a 6-0 lead slip away.
Wednesday, however, went to plan.
“We don’t have (closer Taylor) Rogers, we don’t have (Luis) Garcia, so we were hoping it went that way,” Melvin said. “I had (Nabil) Crismatt in my pocket had I needed to use him a little bit later. But both these guys pitched well enough to finish the game, so all good.”
Clevinger threw six scoreless innings for his second win of the season, and Martinez followed with three scoreless innings to earn his second save of the year.
Clevinger, who spent 2021 rehabbing from a second Tommy John surgery, allowed one hit and walked one while striking out a season-high six batters. It was his first quality start since 2020. Martinez allowed a single, a double and walked one.
“Clev came out and that was the best I’ve seen him, especially this year,” Cronenworth said. “He was lights out and it was awesome to see. Nick came in and did his thing from the bullpen, and those two guys pretty much won us the game.”
While their pitchers were working on a much-needed gem, the Padres scored in four of the final five innings.
A two-out walk by Jurickson Profar and single by Austin Nola put runners at first and second in the fifth, and Cronenworth’s first hit in seven games gave them a 1-0 lead.
That first run came against Madison Bumgarner. The Padres didn’t have the same level of success they have enjoyed since he joined the Diamondbacks, except that he and the Diamondbacks lost.
Bumgarner is now 0-5 and his team is 1-7 in his starts against the Padres since the start of the 2020 season. His ERA against them in that span improved to 6.03.
Ha-Seong Kim walked with one out in the sixth and sprinted to third base when pitcher Kyle Nelson sailed a pickoff attempt well out of reach of first baseman Christian
Walker. After Jose Azocar lined out, CJ Abrams’ line-drive single to left field drove in Kim.
The Padres added a run in the seventh when Cronenworth, who was 0-for-26 in his previous six games, doubled and Luke Voit singled.
Cronenworth had his hand in a third run with his second double, driving in Profar, who had walked, with a drive off the top of the wall in straightaway center in the ninth inning.