Padres beat Rockies as Musgrove continues stellar season

Joe Musgrove, the El Cajon child, has embraced taking part in for the staff he cheered for rising up.

He even took the quantity “44,” as a result of the quantity he wore his first 5 main league seasons was taken and since Jake Peavy wore “44” and was Musgrove’s favourite participant again within the day.

And 11 begins into his second season with the Padres, Musgrove is on observe to emulate the pitcher whose sport and persona he admired.

He labored greater than in any of his earlier begins in 2022, however he didn’t enable a run in six innings and the Padres beat the Rockies 9-0 at Petco Park.

“I used to be removed from environment friendly tonight, however I made massive pitches once I wanted to,” Musgrove mentioned after enhancing to 7-0 and decreasing his main league-leading ERA to 1.50.

Musgrove has not allowed a run in 16 innings and has allowed one run in his previous 4 begins, a span of 27 innings.

His 1.50 ERA is the second lowest by a Padres pitcher via the primary 11 begins of a season. The bottom: Peavy’s 1.47 initially of his Cy Younger marketing campaign in 2007.

The Padres scored twice within the second, fourth, sixth and seventh innings, and Manny Machado hit his 10^th house run of the season within the third. Jake Cronenworth’s two-run double within the fourth and a run-scoring grounder within the seventh gave him 17 RBIs previously six video games. Jurickson Profar tripled to drive in a run, his seventh straight sport with at leats one RBI. Trent Grisham doubled in a run and scored twice. Nomar Mazara and Ha-Seong Kim had three hits apiece, and Austin Nola was 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run.

They’ve outscored their opponents 29-2 in a three-game successful streak. Earlier than this run, that they had not scored greater than 24 runs in any three-game stretch this season.

“I feel proper now it’s the staff we’re and we’re taking part in like we’re on paper,” Cronenworth mentioned.

Musgrove was beginning for the primary time since throwing a career-high 114 pitches precisely one week earlier. Having fallen 4 outs shy of his second no-hitter final Friday in Milwaukee, Charlie Blackmon’s one-out single within the first inning took away any suspense this time.

Musgrove wanted 26 pitches to get via the primary inning and ended up throwing 109. He stranded runners at second and third within the fourth inning and completed having allowed 4 hits and struck out eight.

“Having that disturbing inning come early within the sport, it allowed me to form of discover it as the sport went on,” Musgrove mentioned. “I felt like I used to be getting increasingly environment friendly. By the top of the sport, I used to be fairly drained. … I figured that was gonna be my final inning, so was form of emptying the tank.”

Musgrove final night time didn’t have his finest slider however substituted his curveball as his major breaking pitch and used his fastball extra liberally than he had in earlier begins towards the Rockies. in doing so, he continued his streak of getting allowed not more than two earned runs and gone no fewer than six innings in any begin this season.

“He’s some of the elite opponents I’ve ever performed with on the mound,” Cronenworth mentioned. “It looks like even when he doesn’t have his good things, he’s discovering a solution to grind via 5 innings, looking for methods. If one pitch isn’t working and he’s received one thing else in his again pocket that’s, simply holding guys off steadiness. He’s an unimaginable man to be round.”

The Padres are 10-1 in these begins.

“He’s received massive shoulders,” Melvin mentioned. “He takes the mound and all people form of rides him on the market.”