History And Victory: The San Diego Padres Get A Win And Set MLB Records In The Process

An old baseball adage is you win with pitching and defense.

Well, the Padres had premiere pitching Sunday and perfect defense as well, the later is part of a Major League Baseball record breaking start to the season for Padre fielders.

The Padres entered Sunday's game having tied an MLB record with 10 straight games to begin a season without an error.

After 9 error free innings against the Braves, the Padres broke the MLB record and became the first team in baseball history to have no errors in their first 11 games of the season.

11 straight games to start the 2022 season, 11 straight games with no errors, that's dandy defense from all Padre players who have been in the field so far.

For Padres pitcher Yu Darvish, what a difference 5 days makes.

On April 12th in San Francisco against the Giants, Darvish didn't even finish the 2nd inning and left after giving up 8 hits and 9 runs.

Sunday against the Braves, Darvish was marvelous on the mound. He pitched 6.2 innings, struck out 8 batters and allowed just 1 run.

Darvish also made baseball history.

Darvish’s fourth strikeout of the day was the 1,600th of his career. With just 1,302.1 innings pitched, Darvish is the fastest pitcher to 1,600 Ks by innings pitched. No other pitcher has ever reached that milestone in fewer than 1,350 innings.

The Padres scored the first runs of the game in the bottom of the 2nd inning. Ha-Seong Kim scored the first run, when Braves starting pitcher Bryce Elder hit Austin Nola with a pitch and the bases loaded. The Padres tacked on a second run in the inning when Jake Cronenworth grounded into a fielders choice, allowing C.J. Abrams to score from 3rd base.

After being shutout but Darvish through the first 6 innings, the Braves broke through in the 7th, as Marcell Ozuna crushed a pitch into the left field seats for a solo home run.

The Padres home stand continues with 3 games against the Cincinnati Reds, beginning Monday, April 18th.