San Diego has been shutting down the Dodgers' offense.
Padres’ pitchers achieve rare feat against Dodgers in back-to-back games originally appeared on The Sporting News
Only Sonny Gray had held the Los Angeles Dodgers to one hit across at least six innings all season, per MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. That is, until Padres’ pitchers Yu Darvish and Nestor Cortes did it on back-to-back nights.
Cortes spun 6.0 shutout innings of one-hit ball on Saturday night as San Diego overtook the Dodgers for the NL West lead with a 5-1 victory at Petco Park. Darvish did the same a day earlier, allowing one hit over six frames in a 2-1 series-opening win.
With 32 games left to play, the Padres are searching for their first division title since 2006.
San Diego’s pitching masterclass
Cortes, nicknamed Nasty, looked the part on Saturday by retiring the first 16 Dodgers he faced. The eight-year Major League veteran was acquired from Milwaukee at the Trade Deadline and is already paying dividends, with a 3.00 ERA over four starts in San Diego.
“We’re still getting to know him,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said of Cortes, per Cassavell. “It just feels like once he gets in a rhythm, it’s really good. He got in a rhythm right from the very first batter, just carried it through. That was a fantastic effort.”
Darvish helped secure a crucial win on Friday, setting the tone of this weekend’s series in San Diego a week after Los Angeles swept the Padres at Dodger Stadium. He needed only 74 pitches to complete six innings and become the first Padres’ starter 39 or older to earn a win since Greg Maddux in 2008.
San Diego gets a chance at a series sweep vs. its division rivals today at 4:10 p.m. ET. And with the easiest remaining schedule in the Majors, the Padres couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to earn their first division title in nearly 20 years.
Category: Baseball
