Padres pitching shines in 7-0 win over Mets

Yu Darvish and Adrian Morejon combined to shutout the powerful New York Mets offense and changed the math on the Padres' bullpen going forward.

A couple of days ago, I saw a quote from Bob Melvin. He was asked about his bullpen and how tired it was, and how he was hoping to get them some rest in the upcoming days.

I don’t have the quote in front of me, but Melvin’s response was basically just confidence in Yu Darvish. He made it sound like Yu was guaranteed to give the bullpen an easy day, and it didn’t sound like he was blowing hot air. Bob legitimately believed and planned for Darvish to (once again) go long into the game.

Those types of comments tend to make their way through a clubhouse. Guys find out what their managers think of them, and Darvish undoubtedly knew that his team needed him to go 7 innings before taking the hill last night against one of the best offenses in all of baseball.

Rob Friedman@PitchingNinja

Yu Darvish, Disappearing 92mph Splitter. 👻

11:02 AM · Jun 8, 2022

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53 Reposts · 524 Likes

All of this is to say that Darvish spun a gem last night, giving up his first hit of the night with two outs in the 6th inning, and lived up to the lofty expectations his manager has for him. It was Yu’s best start of the season.

One thing I’ve noticed with Darvish is that the end of his starts tends to be where things can get out of hand in a hurry. In his last start, he held the Cardinals to 1 run over 5 innings before allowing 4 runs over the next 3 innings. I was worried that Darvish would unravel once his no-hit bid was done for last night, but he didn’t.

Yu Darvish pitched 7 shutout innings, was never in real trouble, and gave his team exactly what they needed. And, honestly, he’s not even the pitcher I woke up excited to write about this morning…