SAN DIEGO — Bob Melvin shifted in his seat on the bench, clenched his fungo a bit tighter and gave it two knocks with his knuckles. The Padres manager would have preferred the team’s errorless streak to start the 2022 season gone unaddressed in his pregame get-together with reporters. As far as Yu Darvish coming off one of the worst starts of his career, the 60-year-old manager had no concerns whatsoever.
“Probably,” he said, “more in the fashion that we saw in the first start than the second one.”
Melvin was right.
The defense was flawless again.
His bats still aren’t doing much at all, but the Padres did just enough in a 2-1 win to split a four-game series with the defending champion Atlanta Braves.
Darvish certainly did his part, rebounding from the shortest outing of his career (nine runs in two-thirds of an inning) to strike out eight batters over 6 2/3 innings. He didn’t walk a batter, gave up just four hits — including two to Matt Olson — and allowed his only run on Marcell Ozuna’s moonshot to open the seventh.
Darvish responded with his eighth punchout and a ground ball before Adam Duvall’s double to left chased him after 96 pitches (64 strikes).
Rookie Steven Wilson needed just one pitch get Eddie Rosario to fly out to center, Luis Garcia pitched a scoreless eighth and closer Taylor Rogers converted his fourth save to preserve Darvish’s first win of the season.
Darvish opened the season with six no-hit innings before the bullpen gave up a walk-off homer in Phoenix. The next time out in San Francisco, Darvish recorded just two outs (tied for the shortest out of his career) and allowed nine runs (the second most of his career).
On Sunday, Darvish rebounded with strikeouts of four of the first five batters he faced, giving him 1,600 through the first 1,302 1/3 innings, the fastest pitcher to ever reach that total according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Perhaps Darvish’s cushion, aided by the Padres defense setting an MLB record with an 11th straight error-less game to start the season, should have been better padded.
The Padres, after all, loaded the bases in each of the first two innings and managed just two runs in the second inning.
Eric Hosmer and Jurickson Profar both popped out to squander the first-inning chance. They pushed two across in the second inning after loading the bases but did so without a hit. Braves rookie Bryce Elder hit Austin Nola to allow the first run and the second scored when Jake Cronenworth beat out a potential inning-ending double play.
The Padres also stranded two runs in the fourth inning and let Elder off the hook in the fifth when Profar bounced into an inning-ending double play on reliever Spencer Strider’s first pitch in relief of the Braves rookie.
Elder accounted for five of the Braves staff’s eight walks but allowed just two runs on three hits in 4 1/3 innings. Strider walked three more while spinning 3 2/3 hitless innings in relief.
The Padres were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left 10 on base.
