SAN DIEGO — They call it shoving.
As in, "That pitcher shoved."
The insinuation isn't difficult to understand, and it is exactly what happened Monday to the Padres.
By a 24-year-old named Ryne Nelson, who was making his major league debut for the Diamondbacks.
On a day Padres starting pitcher Blake Snell struck out 10 and allowed but one run in six innings, Nelson bamboozled the Padres for seven innings at Petco Park in what ended up a 5-0 victory for the Diamondbacks.
The young right-hander did what many veteran pitchers can't. He threw strikes, 61 of them among his 87 pitches. He recorded seven strikeouts, five of them ending with the Padres looking at either his high-90s fastball, floating change-up in the low 80s or a slider he frequently placed on the strike zone's edges.
The Padres had just five at-bats last longer than four pitches against Nelson, and two of those were in his final inning. Between Jurickson Profar's leadoff double in the first inning and his two-out double in the sixth inning, 17 straight Padres made outs in a total of 55 pitches.
A modicum of boos rained down after the final outs of the fifth and sixth innings. The latter was a shallow fly ball to center field by Juan Soto.
Soto had also popped out after Profar's first-inning double, and that was followed by Manny Machado's groundout and a Josh Bell strikeout.
The Padres' only other hits off Nelson were singles by Bell and Ha-Seong Kim in the seventh. Jake Cronenworth was booed after watching a fastball for a called third strike following Bell's hit. Cheers erupted again when Kim lined his hit to left field. But the boos were back, and louder, when Matt Beaty ended the threat with a fly ball to right field (dropping his season average to .093).
That was the full list of the Padres' opportunities against Nelson.
The Diamondbacks scored with back-to-back doubles by Stone Garrett and Alek Thomas in the second inning. That was half of their hit total against Snell and followed a run of five strikeouts.
Snell took 98 pitches to finish six innings, and the Diamondbacks added a run on Garrett's home run off Steven Wilson in the seventh.
Boos drowned out clapping as the final out was made in the top of the eighth inning, during which the Diamondbacks added two runs off Nick Martinez.
By the time Thomas' sacrifice fly scored Jake McCarthy, who had led off the ninth inning with a walk against Josh Hader, there was mostly disinterest from the remnant of the announced crowd of 37,713.
The loss dropped the Padres into the sixth (and final) playoff spot in the National League. They are in a virtual tie with the Phillies, who hold the tiebreaker over them by virtue of having won the season series between the teams. The Brewers beat the Rockies on Monday to move within two games behind both the Padres and Phillies.
The Padres had won nine of 12 against the Diamondbacks this season, which included a 5-1 mark at Petco Park.
This does seem to be an improved Arizona squad, as Monday was its ninth win in 11 games. That stretch included the Diamondbacks taking two of three from the Phillies and three of four from Milwaukee.
