Sometimes the difference in a baseball game comes down to one little detail. That's exactly what happened on Sunday afternoon at Petco Park and the result was not kind to the Padres. The Friars lost to the Brewers 1-0 in a game that could have gone much, much differently.
Yu Darvish was absolutely spectacular. The right-hander struck out 12 Brewers, the 50th start of his career with double-digit punchouts. The only run he allowed came in on what amounts to a misunderstanding.
In the 2nd inning Garrett Mitchell reached on a bunt single. Darvish stepped off the pitching rubber early in the next at-bat against Brian Anderson, then threw over to 1st base. That's when the confusion began.
Home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi told the San Diego dugout that Darvish had reached his disengagement limit, alerting the Padres to one of baseball's recent rule changes. However, Darvish didn't hear the message. So, when Yu threw over again an automatic balk was triggered, sending Mitchell to 2nd base. Not knowing he'd been assessed two disengagements was the first part of the issue.
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The second was technological. The Padres had a problem with PitchCom, the new electronic system being used across the sport this year to convey pitches and infield plays. Darvish was not supposed to throw over. He was supposed to throw out.
"I actually had a pitchout on and then PitchCom got a throw over," says manager Bob Melvin. "He didn't know there were already two disengagements so there was a little bit of issues with how we handled that one."
In his ear, Darvish heard "throw over" instead of "pitchout" and he followed instructions.
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"The sign was a pickoff and I did that not knowing I had already disengaged two times," said Darvish through an interpreter. "
Catcher Austin Nola was making the calls via PitchCom, which has four different modes to shuffle through, on the fly, without looking at the clicker, on a short clock. Nola says that's where the problem came from on Sunday.
"That's probably the toughest part is switching the mode because we have multiple modes with multiple pitchers," says Nola. "If you don't hold the button down long enough it'll spit out a pitch instead of a play like the pitchout that we had. I must have not held it down long enough I guess probably because the clock was running down so I hit the button and it spat out a pickoff."
Mitchell promptly stole 3rd with a massive jump that didn't even elicit a throw from Nola and scored on a sacrifice fly by Brian Anderson. If that was the only run Darvish had allowed and he wasn't the losing pitcher it would be a footnote. Since it led to the only run of the game, it's a big deal.
And Yu's offense had chances to give their guy a win.
San Diego had a chance to put a hurting on Milwaukee starter Wade Miley in the first inning. Xander Bogaerts led off with an infield single to run his hitting streak to 10 games then went to 3rd base on a line drive single from Manny Machado. With a runner on 3rd base and nobody out you're really just looking for a decent fly ball. In this case even a grounder would have gotten the run home.
Juan Soto struck out looking. The sacrifice fly was still in play for Nelson Cruz but he went down swinging, squandering a golden scoring chance. Jake Cronenworth did what the first two were trying to do by flying out to Christian Yelich just in front of the left field fence to end the inning.
With one out in the 2nd inning Austin Nola doubled and went to 3rd base on a wild pitch, setting up another opportunity to bring in a run with an out. Trent Grisham also struck out. The Brewers were able to take advantage of their chance while the Padres weren't. There's your ballgame because San Diego didn't generate another real threat until the 9th inning.
Juan Soto led off with a walk against Milwaukee closer Devin Williams. Cruz and Cronenworth struck out but Ha-Seong Kim lined a single to left to put the tying run in scoring position for Nola, who walked to load the bases for Grisham.
Trent took a called 3rd strike on a 3-2 pitch to end it. The Brewers took three of four games in the series and gave the Padres a losing record again at 8-9.
It's especially frustrating for the fan base when this team has an offense with so many superstars that is just not producing runs consistently. Their next chance to right the ship comes when the Friars start a 3-game set against Atlanta on Monday night. Then they head to Arizona for a 4-game series and will have Fernando Tatis Jr., who hit seven home runs in eight games with El Paso, back in the lineup.
Maybe he's the guy who finally lights the fuse on what's supposed to be one of the game's most explosive offenses.
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