The Padres won on Opening Day … but why stop at 1-0 when you can go 2-0, something San Diego’s pro baseball team has not done since 2011?
The Padres got another strong start from a young left-hander, another home run from a veteran, and more electrifying play from the best rookie in the game to beat the Giants 4-1 on Friday night in front of 33,769 fans at Petco Park.
Joey Lucchesi followed Eric Lauer’s 6.0 shutout innings from Thursday with 5.1 innings of scoreless baseball to help the Friars set a new franchise record. They went 17.0 innings without allowing a run, passing the 14.0 innings of shutout ball the 2008 staff spun.
The Friars scored in the 2nd inning when Eric Hosmer led off with a walk and Fernando Tatis Jr., the 20-year-old phenom, hit a rocket off the centerfield fence that missed leaving the yard by about a foot (or less). It turned into his first big league double.
Manuel Margot followed with a single to right. Hosmer scored easily and Tatis showed off speed that a 6-foot-3, 185-pound person should not have, scoring from 2nd base with a slide and a fist pump that lit up Petco Park. After that we saw a couple of firsts.
2nd baseman Ian Kinsler hit his first Padres home run, a solo blast to lead off the 3rd inning and make it a 3-0 San Diego lead. In the 5th inning 3rd baseman Manny Machado got his first Padres hit, a single to left field that drew a nice ovation from the Friar Faithful.
Franmil Reyes drove in Wil Myers to make it a 4-0 game. The Giants didn’t get their first run of 2019 until 3rd baseman Evan Longoria led off the 9th inning with a solo homer off Phil Maton. After that Kirby Yates came on to get the final three outs but it was not easy.
Yates allowed a single, a walk and a hit batter to load the bases with one out. He righted the ship with back-to-back strikeouts of Gerardo Parra and Brandon Belt.
The Padres will try to make it three in a row on Saturday when rookie Nick Margevicious, a 22-year-old who has all of one career start higher than Single-A, makes his Major League debut on the mound against Giants right-hander Dereck Rodriguez.
