The San Diego Padres crushed Atlanta 9-1 on Sunday night behind Yu Darvish, who shut down a faltering Braves offense and extended his career-high scoreless innings streak to 25. Darvish also earned his 200th professional win.
In seven innings, Darvish (4-1) allowed just two hits, struck out nine and walked one while using 99 pitches. This reduced his ERA to 2.08.
“Yu has been elite the last four times out,” Padres manager Mike Shildt stated. “He’s been nothing short of magnificent.”
After Hiroki Kuroda (203) and Hideo Nomo (201), Darvish became the third pitcher of Japanese descent to reach 200 career victories between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball. With 93 NPB victories and 107 major league victories overall, Darvish has won his last four outings.
Through an interpreter, Darvish remarked, “Those two other pitchers, obviously we know how good they are.” “Just to be a little bit closer to them, I feel honored and it gives me confidence moving forward.”
Since Bartolo Colon pitched 30 scoreless innings in 2015, Darvish is the first pitcher 37 years of age or older to throw 25 consecutive scoreless innings in a season.
In May 1980, Randy Jones set a single-season record for the Padres by pitching 30 straight scoreless innings.
The Padres, who had not scored any extra-base hits in their previous three games, were led by home runs from Jake Cronenworth, Luis Campusano, and Ha-Seong Kim. Jurickson Profar scored two runs, walked, and had three hits in a game.
Luis Arraez extended his on-base streak to 23 games, the longest active streak in the majors, with a 2-for-4 performance, a walk, a run, and a stolen base.
Bryce Elder (1-2) of Atlanta struggled right away, giving up six earned runs in three innings. He walked three, struck out three, and gave up nine hits.
Braves backup shortstop Luke Williams threw a flawless ninth inning.
Through the first two games of the four-game series, the Padres’ pitching has crushed the Braves, allowing only two runs and 11 hits while striking out 29.
With a hitting run of 11 games, Marcell Ozuna of the Braves went 1-for-4. “[Darvish] was locating every pitch and we couldn’t get him tonight,” Ozuna said. “He was good.”
The Padres were swept by the Rockies, who were in last place, going into the series.
“That’s just baseball,” Cronenworth remarked. “That’s a really good team over there. They’ve had 100 wins for the last ‘X’ amount of years. We came in after an off day and reset and played good baseball.”
At the top of the first inning, San Diego led 3-0. With two outs, Cronenworth launched a two-run home run into the Chop House restaurant located in right field. To score the third run, Jackson Merrill, Xander Bogaerts, and Manny Machado all followed with singles.
Ronald Acuna Jr. dropped a fly ball in right field, which allowed the Padres to score four more runs in the fourth inning. Acuña dropped Machado’s sinking fly in the previous at-bat, but Fernando Tatis Jr. scored two runs, Profar scored one run, and Bogaerts made a sacrifice fly on what would have been the third out.
