SAN DIEGO — Joe Musgrove, the El Cajon kid, has embraced playing for the team he cheered for growing up.
He even took the number “44,” because the number he wore his first five major league seasons was taken and because Jake Peavy wore “44” and was Musgrove’s favorite player back in the day.
And 11 starts into his second season with the San Diego Padres, Musgrove is on track to emulate the pitcher whose game and persona he admired.
He labored more than in any of his previous starts in 2022, but he didn’t allow a run in six innings and the Padres beat the Rockies 9-0 at Petco Park.
Musgrove (7-0) has not allowed a run in 16 innings and has allowed one run in his past four starts, a span of 27 innings.
His 1.50 ERA is the second lowest by a Padres pitcher through the first 11 starts of a season. The lowest: Peavy’s 1.47 at the beginning of his Cy Young campaign in 2007.
The Padres scored twice in the second, fourth, sixth and seventh innings, and Manny Machado hit his 10th home run of the season in the third. Jake Cronenworth’s two-run double in the fourth and a run-scoring grounder in the seventh gave him 17 RBIs in the past six games. Trent Grisham doubled in a run and scored twice. Nomar Mazara and Ha-Seong Kim had three hits apiece, and Austin Nola was 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run.
Musgrove was starting for the first time since throwing a career-high 114 pitches exactly one week earlier. Having fallen four outs shy of his second no-hitter last Friday in Milwaukee, Charlie Blackmon’s one-out single in the first inning took away any suspense this time.
Musgrove needed 26 pitches to get through the first inning and ended up throwing 109. He stranded runners at second and third in the fourth inning and finished having allowed four hits and struck out eight.
Musgrove has allowed no more than two earned runs and gone no fewer than six innings in any start this season. The Padres are 10-1 in those starts.
