(Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images)
The San Diego Padres held the Toronto Blue Jays offense to one run in their last two games.
Their starting pitching has been marvelous in the last two days.
On Wednesday, Yu Darvish and the bullpen combined to blank the Jays and win, 2-0.
On Tuesday, however, it was Joe Musgrove who dominated Toronto.
The right-hander pitched six innings of one-run ball, with just one walk and seven strikeouts.
He won his eighth straight decision and keeps showing the world that his early-season struggles are a thing of the past.
In fact, MLB Network posted a graphic that shows how bad he was over his first five turns of the season, and how great he has been in the last ten.
The @Padres right-hander has been DEALING! pic.twitter.com/XkYX1GxPxv
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) July 19, 2023
He was 1-2 with a 6.74 ERA over his first five starts of the 2023 campaign, and opponents had an .892 OPS against him.
He looked lost, and fell victim to the long ball often with six homers conceded.
He made adjustments, though: baseball is a game of continual adjustments, and it doesn’t matter if you have been in the league for five or 10 years.
In his last 10 starts, Musgrove is back to Cy Young-contender form, with a 8-0 record and a 1.76 ERA.
He has held opposing batters to a .568 OPS over that span with just two home runs surrendered.
That’s more like it.
If the trio of Darvish-Musgrove-Blake Snell keeps dominating, there is a path for the Padres to sneak into contention again in the second half.
At the moment, they are 46-50 and fourth in the NL West.
Those three carry star potential, though, and could win a lot of games for the Friars in the stretch run.
The post Joe Musgrove Is Back To His Old Ways For The Padres appeared first on The Cold Wire.