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The Padres youth movement was not supposed to include right-handed pitcher Brett Kennedy. An 11th-round pick out of Fordham, Kennedy has never been considered a top prospect.
He sure pitched like one on Friday night.
Kennedy went 6.0 shutout innings and got some offensive help from another pair of rookies in a 7-0 Padres win over the Rockies. Kennedy earned his first MLB win and San Diego has a 4-game winning streak for the first time in 2018.
Rookie outfielder Franmil Reyes opened up the scoring with a 425-foot solo home run in the 4th inning. It was the 13th dinger of the season for Reyes, who’s gone deep four times in six games.
The Friars took a 2-0 lead to the 8th inning and that’s when the proverbial floodgates opened courtesy of rookie sensation Luis Urias. The infielder launched his 1st big league homer onto the Petco Porch down the right field line, a 2-run shot that also gave Urias his first Major League RBI.
Wil Myers followed with a solo homer to make it 5-0. Back-to-back doubles by Eric Hosmer and Hunter Renfroe made it 6-0 and Austin Hedges drove in Renfroe with a solid single to center to cap a 5-run inning. With that kind of breathing room we got to see another first.
Rookie reliever Rowan Wick came to pitch the 9th in his big league debut and it was perfect. Wick threw eight pitches, all of them for strikes, and punched out Kyle McMahon for his 1st big league whiff.
The Padres four wins have all been started by rookie pitchers and they were all fabulous. Jacob Nix, Joey Lucchesi, Eric Lauer, and Kennedy combined to throw 26.0 innings and allowed all of two earned runs.
They’ll try to make it five straight wins on Saturday night when Robbie Erlin … the old man in the starting rotation with 32 career big league starts … takes the mound against Rockies right-hander Jon Gray at Petco Park.
