Musgrove’s seven strong innings lift Padres to third straight win
Credit: AP Photo
Behind seven shutout innings from Padres starter Joe Musgrove and some timely hitting from Manny Machado and Trent Grisham, San Diego beat the San Francisco Giants 2-1 on Saturday afternoon. With the win, the Padres move to 6-2 on their current road trip and have won each of their past three series. They have also posted a record above .500 in each of their past three road trips.
First baseman Luke Voit was asked after the game about how the Padres have continued to find ways to win, even without their bats clicking: “It’s nice playing these close games because they’re like playoff games, and we keep finding ways to grind them out…Credit to the guys making big plays and coming up with big hits…Any way you can find a way to win, and that’s what we’re doing right now.” The Padres are currently 9-4 in one-run games.
In what was mostly a pitcher’s duel throughout the afternoon, the Padres used a combination of power and small ball to push across their two runs.
Machado started the scoring in the third inning with his eighth home run of the season, a solo shot to left-center field that wound up putting the Padres ahead for good. Machado remains squarely in second place in the MLB in batting average at .358, trailing only Anaheim’s Taylor Ward (.370 coming into play on Saturday).
In the sixth, threatening with runners on first and third, Grisham executed a successful safety squeeze bunt to bring home the Padres’ second run. Grisham remains mired in an extended slump to start the season, though, hitting only .146 and consistently swinging through fastballs in the strike zone.
The pair of runs were all Musgrove needed to earn his fifth win of the season (5-0), lowering his ERA to 1.90 in the process. The Padres have now won in each of Musgrove’s eight starts, all of which have been Quality Starts. Musgrove’s quality start today was his eighth of the season and 21st for the Padres, both of which lead the MLB.
“Joe did a phenomenal job today. His four-pitch mix was working…Credit to Joe, it was fun to watch,” Voit also said after the game.
Musgrove faced his most trouble of the afternoon in the sixth inning after giving up a leadoff double to Tommy La Stella and a one-out walk to Mike Yastrzemski but induced a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Darin Ruf to end the threat. Wilmer Flores homered in the eighth inning off Padres reliever Robert Suarez for the Giants’ lone score of the game.
Taylor Rogers closed out the Padres’ 26th victory of the season with his MLB-leading 16th save. Rogers has been dominant at the back end of the Padres bullpen, pitching to a 0.49 ERA and not allowing a run since May 10th against the Cubs. While he is the Padres closer and usually only pitches in victories, the Padres are still impressively 18-0 in games where Rogers makes an appearance.
[wpedon id=”49075″ align=”right”]
One of the more underrated performances of the afternoon came from the defense of Ha-Seong Kim. Starting at shortstop for the fifth consecutive game, Kim made a handful of ranging plays in the infield that prevented hits and kept the Giants out of the hit column.
The Padres will go for the series sweep on Sunday afternoon, with MacKenzie Gore tentatively scheduled to start for the Padres against Alex Wood. With a win on Sunday, the Padres would finish their road trip 7-2 before heading back to Petco Park for a series against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Sammy is a 2021 graduate/college baseball player with a degree in economics from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Currently, he resides in a suburb of Portland called Lake Oswego. Sammy previously wrote for EVT from November 2017-November 2019, and is back again as of April 2022.
In his free time, Sammy enjoys spending time outside, playing golf, and watching his hometown Padres.
Musgrove is pitching like an ace…like a #1…not a #3…he’s on pace for a 20 win season, and if he continues like he is, the Padres need to figure out how they’re going to sign him…When you consider that they will almost certainly deal a starter, or two, to acquire some much needed offense, signing Joe becomes even more of a necessity… Myers contract will come off the books, and free up some money, but that may not help enough to sign several players who are due big raises…something has to give, hopefully not at the expense of the core talent already in house…Stay tuned…things are about to get very interesting in Friar land….