PHILADELPHIA — The Padres practically flaunted their abundance of starting pitching in everyone’s face Tuesday night.
Mike Clevinger pitched five scoreless innings before being replaced by rookie MacKenzie Gore, who added on three scoreless innings in his first professional relief appearance.
That got the game to Taylor Rogers, who moved into a tie for the major league lead with his 14th save by closing out a 3-0 victory over the Phillies in the opener of a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park.
The Padres plan to go with the piggyback again Wednesday with the hope Blake Snell and Nick Martinez can work out even close to as well as the Clevinger-Gore tandem did.
They have seven starting pitchers and want to use them all, and Clevinger making his third start and Snell making his season debut on back-to-back nights afforded the opportunity to do so.
There has been talk of going back to a six-man rotation for a time at some point during what will be 40 games in 42 days. For now, the first starter after a starter effort worked exceedingly well.
The Padres, who had scored at least five runs in five straight games and in their previous 13 road games, won for the third time in four games on this trip and improved to 13-6 on the road this season, a mark that’s tied for second best in the major leagues.
They took a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning on two singles and a groundout and went up 3-0 in the seventh on two singles, a double and an error.
Clevinger, who had Tommy John surgery in November 2020 and began the season on the injured list with a right knee sprain, was more far efficient Tuesday than he had been in his first two starts. He took just 75 pitches to get through five innings for the first time — after going 4 2/3 in 95 pitches in his first start and 4 1/3 in 91 pitches in his second start.
His efficiency was facilitated by allowing one hit and walking none.
Gore took 12 pitches to get through a perfect sixth inning before navigating consecutive one-out singles to finish the seventh in 14 pitches. He followed a leadoff single in the eighth with two strikeouts and a groundout. In all, his night lasted 40 pitches.
Gore, the Padres’ top pitching prospect, began the season by making five starts in which he posted a 2.60 ERA over 26 innings.
Alec Bohm’s line drive to left field leading off the bottom of the fourth inning was the Phillies’ only hit against Clevinger.
The Padres’ only hit to that point was Jurickson Profar’s infield single in the second inning.
They got their second and third hits in succession in the fifth inning, when Wil Myers poked a ball the other way through a giant hole at second base created by a shift and Robinson Cano flared a single to center field for his first hit with the Padres. The latter moved Myers to third, and he scored on a grounder by Austin Nola.
The same situation occurred in the sixth inning after singles by Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado, but Eric Hosmer popped out and Profar flied out.
Phillies starter Zach Eflin was removed after the sixth, and the Padres scored against reliever James Norwood, whom they had sent to the Phillies on March 30 in exchange for minor league infielder Kervin Pichardo.
Myers led off with a walk and scored when Cano’s single to left field rolled under Kyle Schwarber’s glove. Cano scored on Trent Grisham’s one-out double to the base of the wall in right-center field.
Tuesday was just the seventh time in 36 games the Phillies had as few as five hits. It was the Padres’ third shutout of the season.
The Phillies entered the game with the highest slugging percentage of any major league team, though they were without Bryce Harper and likely will be again Wednesday. Their leading slugger, whose .995 OPS is fourth-highest in the majors and whose nine homers are tied for sixth most, on Sunday got a platelet-rich plasma injection in his right elbow to treat a tear in his UCL.
