SAN DIEGO — Joe Musgrove walked to the mound Saturday night with the NL’s leading hitter nursing a balky elbow on the bench and just one hitter in his lineup with a batting average better than .235.
Somewhat predictably, he needed more help than he got.
The San Diego Padres stranded a season-high 16 runners, went 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position and paid dearly for it when Ke’Bryan Hayes tagged closer Taylor Rogers for a three-run homer to send the Pirates to a 4-2 win on Saturday night at Petco Park.
The majors’ saves leader with 17, Rogers blew his second save of the season after giving up a leadoff double to Diego Castillo, walking Tucupita Marcano on four pitches and serving up a one-out homer to Hayes, spoiling Musgrove’s ninth straight quality start to open the season.
Musgrove struck out seven and allowed one run on six hits in six innings, only to hand a 1-1 game to the bullpen because of a hapless offense.
Robert Suarez struck out the side in the seventh and was in line for the win after Trent Grisham’s seventh-inning single scored Luke Voit from second base with two outs.
It was the Padres’ first hit in their first 13 at-bats with runners in scoring position. They got one more hit with runners in scoring position when Jake Cronenworth’s infield single in the eighth loaded the bases, but Wil Myers struck out to end the inning.
After Rogers’ blown save, the Padres went down in order in the ninth against former Padres reliever David Bednar, saddling them with their fifth loss this year when leading in the eighth inning.
The Padres’ seventh-inning rally began with Voit walking and moving to second on Jake Cronenworth’s hard-hit ball off reliever Dillon Peters’ foot, chasing him from the game. Chris Stratton immediately walked Myers and Austin Nola flied out to left for the second out, a first-pitch-swinging Grisham pulled a ball to right to break a 1-1 tie.
The Padres also pushed across an unearned run in the second inning, but Eric Hosmer was robbed of a homer to lead off the third inning and the Padres left the bases loaded twice with Musgrove in the game to all but ensure he’d walk off the mound empty-handed.
The Pirates’ lone rally off Musgrove started with Josh VanMeter singling to center to open the fourth and moving to second on a ground ball to second. Jack Suwinski’s ensuing single put runners on the corners and VanMeter scored when Musgrove couldn’t flip the ball to Nola quickly enough on Michael Perez’s tapper in front of the mound.
Musgrove struck out the next two batters to escape further damage and threw two more scoreless innings in finishing a ninth-straight quality start to open the season, all victories until the bullpen could not hold onto a narrow margin Saturday night.
His 1.86 ERA at the end of the night led all qualifying NL starting pitchers.
