Joe Musgrove’s best start of the season occurred in the hours after Yu Darvish came off the restricted list on the last homestand, a seven-inning gem in which he allowed just one hit. The news was equally good on Monday — Fernando Tatis Jr. was back in the lineup after a two-plus-month hiatus — and the 31-year-old veteran was equally motivated to put on a good show.
“I always have this feeling of wanting to impress my teammates,” Musgrove said after throwing six shutout innings in a 3-0 win over the Detroit Tigers. “I want them to feel good and talk good about me, and having a guy that’s been out of the lineup for a while, I wanted to give him a good showing today, and I did.”
Indeed.
Musgrove struck out eight batters and scattered three hits and two walks in turning in a third straight quality start.
This one was propped up by scoreless innings from each of Jason Adam, Tanner Scott and Robert Suarez and timely hits from Luis Arraez, allowing the Padres to move a full game ahead of the Diamondbacks in the NL wild-card standings.
Just as important, it closed a window in which the team went 10-8 while playing 18 straight games and 18-9 while playing 27 games in 28 days in a stretch that began with Tatis, Musgrove and Yu Darvish all unavailable to the team.
Musgrove returned from his elbow trouble first.
Tatis, out for more than two months with a stress reaction in his right femur, rejoined the active lineup on Monday.
Now Darvish, after throwing a bullpen before Monday’s game, will return from his lengthy stay on the injured/restricted lists to start Wednesday as the Padres return to full strength.
“Hopefully,” said Musgrove, who has a 1.30 ERA in five starts from returning from the injured list. “We’ve had really good starts from our team. We had some good starts … early on in the season from (Matt) Waldron. He hit a little bit of a wall at some point, but Randy (Vásquez has) given us some good innings. I think we’ve done a good job of filling the innings when they need to be there. And a lot of credit to the team in general down an 18-game stretch where we finish up in Tampa yesterday, get out of there around 7 and fly cross-country and have a day game today.
“Super impressed and super proud of the way that we played today and hanging in on a one-run ball game all the way up till the eighth.”
Padres manager Mike Shildt echoed Musgrove’s sentiment.
Sunday marked the second time they’d flown from the East Coast for a series the next day in San Diego during this stretch.
There was the rain-suspended game in Pittsburgh.
A three-game adventure in Colorado.
The miserable four days last week in hot and humid St. Louis.
To emerge from all that with twice as many wins as losses and a one-game lead on the red-hot Diamondbacks?
“That’s a quick turnaround going to a new series and you played on the other coast, and you got a late afternoon game,” Shildt said. “And I looked up (this afternoon) … and I’m not going to take for granted that every single person, staff, everything, it was just a normal day. Talk about elite adjusters, and show up, guys were engaged, into the competition. And it’s way easier said than done, but we did it.
“Now we only draw from it, because now that is the identity of who we are, which is a very special identity. It’s an impressive group.”
Until the end, the Padres’ lineup managed little against a planned bullpen game that began with left-hander Tyler Holton throwing two shutout innings.
Even the run they did manage to scratch across in the third inning when Brenan Hanifee replaced Holton required a bit of fortune.
With one out, Mason McCoy tapped a ball to the third base side of the mound and Hanifee’s hurried throw to first got away from Spencer Torkelson, allowing the Padres’ de facto shortstop to scoot into second base.
One batter later, Arraez pulled a ball through the right side of the infield to plate the first run of the game.
Arraez provided insurance in the eighth on a single through the left side of the infield, cashing in Kyle Higashioka’s leadoff double. McCoy also bunted for a single in the inning and the Padres pushed across a third run on Manny Machado’s single through the right side of the infield to ease the burden on Suarez in the ninth.
Meantime, Tatis went hitless in four plate appearances in his first action since the pain in his right leg he was forced him from a game on June 21.
That, however, took nothing away from a team that’s feeling whole again heading into the final four weeks of the season.
“It’s nice to get a boost getting ‘Tati’ back,” Xander Bogaerts said. “Same thing like when we got Joe back. That was a big boost also. Hopefully, we get Yu back soon. A lot of excitement going into this one today. It should help jolt us a little more.
“The boys need it.”
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