CLEVINGER VEXED BY COMMENTARY
PHOENIX
Mike Clevinger was back to being his old self on the mound.
“Felt nostalgic,” said Clevinger, who shut out the Diamondbacks on one hit and a walk over six innings in the Padres’ 4-0 victory Wednesday. “It felt good to finally like kind of have a feel for everything that I’m doing.”
The start was Clevinger’s sixth of the season and marked a turning point of sorts, as he went six innings for the first time since 2020. He did not pitch last year while rehabbing after a second Tommy John surgery in November ’20, and he has spent three stints on the injured list this season due to a knee sprain, triceps soreness and the flu.
“Clev today looking like vintage Clev,” manager Bob Melvin said. “He’s got a couple of consecutive starts under his belt. It’s just pitching for him now. Six innings, 90 pitches is what we’re looking for (from) him today. He did that. Now we just treat him like another pitcher.”
Said Clevinger: “I just can’t wait to go out there and not have a pitch count and just try to help the team win versus feeling like I’m a rehab guy.”
And yet, Clevinger was also peeved by comments he heard Bally Sports Arizona color commentator Bob Brenly had made during the game broadcast.
“He spent half my outing talking about me getting punishments at the Citadel,” Clevinger said. “... So I would like Bob Brenly to come down here and talk to me face-to-face and find out about who I am as a person and why I even got in the Citadel in the first place. I’m just sick of hearing him get this pass because he’s in the booth.”
Clevinger played baseball at The Citadel (officially The Military College of South Carolina) his freshman year before transferring
to a junior college, ostensibly so he could enter baseball’s amateur draft a year early.
He first mentioned an issue with Brenly at the end of his postgame interview on Bally Sports San Diego.
Wednesday’s sixth inning was actually the second time Brenly and Bally Sports Arizona play-by-play broadcaster Steve Berthiaume talked about Clevinger’s time at The Citadel. They did so in the second inning of the teams’ game in San Diego last week. And it was Berthiaume who began a story about Clevinger at The Citadel.
“You look at the hairstyle and everything Mike Clevinger has, that whole persona going, you’d never believe Mike Clevinger went to college at The Citadel,” Berthiaume said last week. “That would be last on your list of possible options.”
Brenly responded: “Yeah, he looks more like a Pepperdine guy. Go to class and then go surfing all afternoon.”
Berthiaume went on to tell a story in which he cited Clevinger as saying he “racked up 1,000 hours of dorm confinement” for dress code violations. Berthiaume repeated a condensed version of the story Wednesday.
After Wednesday’s game, Clevinger spoke of being vexed by what he and others in the Padres clubhouse feel is an ongoing theme with Brenly, who in 2019 called Manny Machado “bush league” and accused him of intentionally laying his bat down in the way of Arizona catcher John Ryan Murphy and the next week criticized Fernando Tatis Jr. for wearing gold chains.
“I mean, shoot, when Tati was first coming up he’s calling Tati a thug because he wore chains and he doesn’t even know who Tatis is,” Clevinger said.
That was Clevinger’s main issue — that a broadcaster would make generalizations about players without knowing them.
“He feels like he’s grandfathered in because he’s been around,” Clevinger said of Brenly, who managed the Diamondbacks in 2001 when they won the World Series. “I don’t take kindly to people talking about me when they don’t know me.”
Machado available
Machado did more onfield work before Wednesday’s game but did not play for a ninth game (10th day) since spraining his ankle.
“I could have used him today if I wanted to,” Melvin said. “We didn’t get in that position. But we’re making significant strides. Maybe he’ll show up sometime in the next series (against the Dodgers).”
Melvin said Machado was available in the right situation Tuesday as well but was “more of an option today.”
Alfaro, too
Catcher Jorge Alfaro continued to get treatment on his right knee and was also available off the bench.
Alfaro said the knee has been bothering him to some extent for a week. He departed Tuesday’s game in the ninth inning, a few innings after aggravating the knee running out an infield single. Alfaro won’t start today, as Austin Nola catches Joe Musgrove’s starts.