Make it two shutouts in a row, this time courtesy of our first-round blue chipper McKenzie Gore. While other Padres fans may be pointing to Tatis or Manny or even Melvin for our club's turnaround, the thing I am most excited about is that 1-2 punch of Musgrove and Gore. Have them pitch back-to-back, and it might even make a good team like the Brewers look weak. Can you imagine them in the playoffs? And yes, Compadres, that's where I see us. There will not be another collapse like last year. Not with Bob Melvin at the helm.
Remember when Gore was only a top prospect in this organization? How the Padres steadfastly refused to trade him? How he tanked in the Minor League prospect rankings after a shaky year on the farm? I have no idea what happened, but it seems like something lit a fire under his tail. He is as close to unhittable as any pitcher in the league right now. Long term, it would be nice for him to throw fewer pitches. We don't need another Blake Snell with a hundred pitches thrown by the fifth inning, plus the hundreds of fans who are put to sleep.
BIG game from Cron, that might have been the breakout performance he needed. RBI double, then a two-run dinger to ice it. That's the Cron we've come to know and love. Anybody still remember Tommy Pham? With all of his talent, I never thought he was a player we could rely on. Good luck with the Reds, Tommy. Don't slap any of your teammates. The real catch in the Tommy Pham trade was landing Cron. Cron has been pressing too much, as we can see. He has still brought superb glove work to the diamond, which is why he is still an everyday player. A Cron who can hit and field is our gadget player, our Deebo Samuel. For overall importance for this team, I rank him right behind Manny.
Pitching for the Brewers, of course, was none other than Aaron Ashby. Some of the older guys may remember the A. Ashby in Padres box scores very well, as in Andy Ashby, #43, who pitched so well for the Padres in the late 1990s and was one of our stalwarts during our pennant run in 1998. I believe he had a few stints on the DL, but he was fun to watch in both '98 and '99. Gave us 31 wins in those years, plus a ton of innings. Nothing but great memories from Andy.
Now Aaron seems to have a bit of bad luck on his team...a theme Padres starters are all too familiar with. He's only 1-4, but has been a great addition since they put him in their rotation. Was pretty darn good against us, too. The home run he allowed to Cron was off a good pitch, one that tailed a little late toward the inside. No walks, nine K's. Tough to win when your club can't score for you.
Two more hits for Grish, I like how the bottom of our batting order came through for us with three runs. Alcantara running out that double play grounder was huge for us. Replays showed he was safe, which would enable him to eventually score on Cron's double. It all starts with the pitchers, though. Musgrove gave us eight innings, Gore six. Good to see that the bullpen is not overworked, too many innings from our bullpen doomed us last year.
That's at least a split in Milwaukee, which is really not bad. I needed some kind of confirmation that we can hang with the top Central teams after losing a few series at home to Milwaukee and Chicago, plus the sweep in St. Louis. Very encouraging.
No comments:
Post a Comment