Joe Musgrove was not sharp. But, as he always does, he found a way to grind through long enough to give his team a chance to win. He was just left in for one hitter too many.
Musgrove got off to a rocky start, found his groove, then fell victim to one extremely good piece of hitting and one sinking line drive in a 4-2 loss to the Phillies, dropping the Padres in a 2-1 hole in the best-of-7 National League Championship Series.
Much like the energy the Padres have gotten from Petco Park's raucous crowd, more than 45,000 phanatics at Citizens Bank Park made for a tangible home field advantage. They were into the game from the very start, and had good reason to be.
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Kyle Schwarber, who hit the longest home run in Petco Park history in Game 1 of this series, launched a leadoff homer against Joe Musgrove to put the Phillies on top after one batter. Musgrove walked the next two hitters to bring up Bryce Harper, the reigning MVP ... and showed everyone just how tough he is.
Joe didn't have his best stuff but he got Harper to ground into a double play then got Nick Castellanos to ground out to end what could have been a disastrous opening inning. The Padres tied it up in the 4th inning in a somewhat strange way.
Philadelphia starter Ranger Suarez hit Juan Soto with a pitch and advanced to 3rd base when Brandon Drury broke his bat but hit a dribbler through the shifted infield for a single. Jake Cronenworth followed with a double play ball but 2nd baseman Jean Segura dropped the feed from Bryson Stott, allowing Soto to score and make it 1-1. In the bottom half, Philly got the run back back plus interest.
Alec Bohm singled and went to 3rd on a line drive by Stott that should have been a single but Soto took an awful angle on the ball and played it into a double. That turned out to be important because it allowed another run to score. Segura fouled off a few Musgrove pitches then got his bat on a ball down and out of the strike zone, flipping it into short right field for a single that should have scored one run but brought in two to make it 3-1 Phillies.
San Diego cut the lead to one again in the 5th inning on a Ha-Seong Kim RBI groundout that plated Trent Grisham and had a chance to find the equalizer one inning later. With runners and 1st and 3rd and one out Padres manager Bob Melvin brought in Josh Bell to pinch-hit for Wil Myers. Bell grounded into a double play to end the threat. As a team the Padres went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
In the bottom of the 6th, Musgrove got the first two outs before giving up a double to Nick Castellanos. In the playoffs, that's usually when a skipper goes to the bullpen. Melvin let Joe face Bohm, who hit a sinking liner to right that landed in front of a diving Soto. It was not an easy catch but it's one that a Gold Glove Award finalist (which Soto is this year) needs to make. The double brought home Castellanos to make it 4-2 and with the way the Padres offense was going that was too large a hill to climb.
Since Major League Baseball adopted the 7-game series format, teams that win Game 3 of a series after splitting the first two go on to win the series 69.1% of the time. In Saturday night's Game 4 the Padres will have several options on the mound. They could go with Mike Clevinger, Sean Manaea, or a bullpen day. Philadelphia is likely to counter with Noah Syndergaard.
If the Padres win that one it will guarantee a Game 6 back at Petco Park on Monday night. If they lose they'll need to win three straight to keep their season alive.
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