SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres were reminded again Tuesday what is possible.
There can be fantastic pitching and plentiful offense in the same game.
The Padres scored four runs in the first two innings and three more in the seventh en route to a 7-0 victory in which Yu Darvish allowed two hits in his seven innings.
Darvish did not allow a hit until a two-out single in the sixth inning.
It was the second time this season Darvish went at least that far in a game without allowing a hit. The other was on opening day, when he was pulled after six hitless innings. It was the fourth time this season a Padres pitcher has taken a no-hitter at least that deep, including Joe Musgrove going 7 2/3 innings before allowing a hit Friday in Milwaukee.
It was just the fourth game this season the Padres scored three or more runs in multiple innings, but it was the second time in two days.
The Padres have gotten a major league-leading 32 quality starts, but they are just mere 22-10 in those games because they too often don’t score enough.
After never leading in Monday’s 11-5 loss to the Mets, the Padres came out hot Tuesday when leadoff batter Jurickson Profar launched a home run to right field of Taijuan Walker.
Successive singles by Eric Hosmer and Nomar Mazara began the second inning. Trent Grisham drove in Hosmer with a one-out single, and Jake Cronenworth followed Profar’s two-out walk with a bases-loaded single to score two more.
Three walks, Manny Machado’s bases-loaded single and Luke Voit’s sacrifice fly completed the scoring.
Darvish navigated a circuitous route.
He hit three of the first five batters he faced — one in the first inning and two in the second.
Three pitches later after he hit Pete Alonso on the hand to start the second inning, Darvish hit Jeff McNeil on the front foot.
Darvish struck out the next two batters and got out of the inning with a groundout. The Mets would not reach base again until Mark Canha’s soft liner into left field with two outs in the sixth.
