SAN DIEGO — The Padres came home to hit, and Joe Musgrove was hard to hit as he started his team’s first game this season played in his hometown.
Musgrove departed to a standing ovation after 6 2/3 scoreless innings with the Padres well on their way to a 12-1 victory over the Braves on Thursday evening at Petco Park.
Kind of a big deal for a kid whose family used to have Padres season tickets.
It was also all Bob Melvin could have hoped for. And he had thought about it a lot.
“Like since the day I signed up,” Melvin said before the game. “There are opening days and then there’s opening day at home. And then there’s opening day at home in San Diego. … I don’t know that I’ve looked as forward to one like I am tonight.”
Melvin is in his 19th season as a major league manager. He became particularly infatuated with Petco Park when his Oakland A’s visited for a midweek series in July and the place was nearly packed. He often refers to the impact that had on him and how it made him look forward to 81 games a year in San Diego.
Neither his new team nor its home crowd were a disappointment Thursday.
The cheers began when Musgrove, the Grossmont High alumnus who last April threw the franchise’s first no-hitter, walked on the field a little more than an hour before he would throw the first pitch. Public address announcer Alex Miniak could not be heard saying the last names of Musgrove, Manny Machado or Fernando Tatis Jr. during pregame introductions. The cheers got louder, still, in a three-run first inning. In the second inning, the bulk of the 44,844 assembled summoned rookie CJ Abrams out of the dugout by chanting “CJ, CJ, CJ.”
The largest Petco Park crowd in seven seasons saved its biggest cheer for the seventh inning, after Machado’s fifth hit of the night and first home run of the season. As Jake Cronenworth batted, the chants of “Manny, Manny, Manny” increased in volume until Machado bounded to the top step of the dugout and waved.
The Padres had a season-high 13 hits and hit half as many home runs as they had in their first seven games together.
They completed their season-opening road trip Wednesday in a slump. In a trek from Phoenix to San Francisco, they had not slugged, put many hits together or hit even .200 with runners in scoring position.
By the second inning, they had matched a season high with three hits with runners in scoring position. By game’s end, they had gone 7-for-19.
When Trent Grisham struck out to end the third inning, it was his third at-bat. To that point, he was the only Padres batter to not reach base.
The team that went eight innings without scoring to close Wednesday’s game at Oracle Park got started right away Thursday.
The Padres were hit by and then got hits against Charlie Morton in the first inning, including successive two-out RBI singles by Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers that gave them a 3-0 lead. Hosmer’s came with the bases loaded and drove in Austin Nola, who had been hit on the back ankle, and Machado, who had hit the first of his four singles. Myers’ single scored Jake Cronenworth, who had been hit on the back foot.
Abrams, playing in his sixth big-league game, led off the second inning by reaching out to launch a 94 mph fastball just off the plate practically on a line over the left field wall.
After he returned to the dugout and his teammates had initially given him the silent treatment, Abrams was prodded by his teammates as the crowd chanted his name. Just after Grisham sent a soft grounder to first base, a smiling Abrams hopped out of the dugout and gave a quick wave as the cheers rose.
Machado’s two-out single was followed by a bloop single by Cronenworth and Luke Voit’s double that one-hopped the wall in left field to make give the Padres a 5-0 lead.
They led 7-0 after the six innings, 9-0 after seven and 12-0 heading to the ninth.
Their early rising was more than enough for Musgrove. He began the game by retiring the first six batters he faced, got out of a jam after yielding a pair of singles to start the third inning, allowed a lead-off double in the fourth and then retired eight in a row.
He was through six innings in 83 pitches, his second time getting through six in his two starts.
Musgrove, who struck out six and allowed four hits, wasn’t finished until he got the first two outs of the seventh. The cheers began before he was off the mound and did not stop until after he was in the dugout.
