The San Diego Padres’ Yu Darvish did not allow the opposing Philadelphia Phillies to score even a single run in a match held on Thursday at the Phillies’ home. The pitcher started the game straight to the seventh innings, allowing no run and no walk. With his outstanding performance, the Padres won the game with 2 runs, while the Phillies scored a zero.
“Pitching and defense and a couple timely hits is obviously a great recipe,” said Ryan Christenson, acting manager for the Padres. “Always has been.”
Darvish (4-1) with his 3.91 ERA, took out five Phillies batters with no walk in the game. He only allowed six hits and one player to reach a scoring position.
The veteran right-hander distanced himself from relying too much on strikeouts and breaking pitches. He turned his strategy of putting fastballs into pitching weak contacts instead.
“Obviously if you can get a strikeout, that’s great,” said Darvish as interpreted. “But if you can get weak contact, you keep the [defense] in rhythm, so to speak, so I think it works just fine.”
Game overview
Pitching after Darvish for the remaining 2 innings were Luis Garcia (2.70 ERA) for 0.2 IP and Taylor Rogers for 1.1 IP. In eight innings, Garcia took out two batters while Rogers took out one, Nick Castellanos.
The Padres were allowed 10 hits in total while the Phillies were allowed eight, with both teams not giving an error. Scoring one run each in the fourth inning for the Padres were Jurickson Profar and Wil Myers.
All Padres players were able to hit at least one pitch in Thursday’s game, excluding Manny Machado, who hit twice, and Sergio Alcantara, who hit none.
The Padres now have a collection of star starters, including Darvish. The team has also Sean Manaea and Joe Musgrove, Mike Clevinger and Blake Snell. Darvish celebrated the relationship between them as they performed well lately.
“The bond between us starters is phenomenal,” Darvish said. “We have a really good bond. When that’s there, you’re really cheering for each other, you’re really rooting for each other, and that might be the key to how everybody is performing well.”
The game between Philadelphia and San Diego was held in a three-series game from Tuesday, May 17 to Thursday, May 19 at the home of the Phillies, Citizens Bank Park. The game ended with the Padres winning the first (0-3) and the last (0-2) game of the series.
The Padres (24-14) are now second in National League West while the Phillies (18-20) are second in NL East. Both teams will meet each other on the field again in a four-game series between June 23 to June 26.
The Phillies’ next game is against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-game series, also at their home at Citizens Bank Park from May 20 to May 22. The Padres’ next games against the San Francisco Giants are also within the same timeframe as the Phillies.
