PHOENIX — The Padres worked and worked before it ultimately worked for them.
They created scoring opportunities against Zac Gallen in the first two innings Saturday before he seemed to be about to do what many of the best pitchers do and find their footing.
But the Padres kept to their commitment to remain disciplined but aggressive.
And in the fourth inning, they did more than create opportunity, scoring twice and then holding on for a 2-0 victory over the Diamondbacks on Saturday night at Chase Field.
Joe Musgrove allowed four hits over six innings and earned his 10th win of the season. Nick Martinez followed with two scoreless innings before Josh Hader closed out the ninth for his 33rd save.
The victory kept the Padres 1 1/2 games ahead of the Brewers, who beat the Yankees, in the race for the sixth (final) National League playoff spot. The Phillies, who sit in the fifth playoff spot, lost at Atlanta and now lead the Padres by just a half-game.
The Padres became the first team in eight starts to be rid of Gallen before the end of the sixth inning and the first team to hand Gallen a loss since June 10. He was 8-0, and the Diamondbacks had won 11 of his 16 starts in that span.
Gallen, whose 0.57 ERA over his previous eight starts was best among major league starters by nearly a point, had taken 10 pitches to get through the third inning before Jake Cronenworth led off the fourth with a double on the eighth pitch of his at-bat. On Josh Bell's grounder to third baseman Sergio Alcantara, who was positioned practically at shortstop in a shift, Cronenworth scrambled to the empty third base bag. He scored on Ha-Seong Kim's sacrifice fly.
The next batter was Luis Campusano, a 23-year-old starting for the first time since Sept. 3 and fourth time this season. He yanked a 1-0 fastball over the wall in left field. The 411-foot blast was Campusano's first home run since his major league debut on Sept. 4, 2020. It was the first home run against Gallen since July 13, a span of 235 batters.
The transformation of the Padres over the past two days has been remarkable — from a team that approached so many of its at-bats passively to one that is patiently aggressive.
And it was one thing to attack fading Madison Bumgarner's enticing strikes on Friday. Laying off Gallen's curveball that drops precipitously out of the strikes zone and fighting off his fastball on the edges of the zone is another thing.
Soto and Cronenworth worked full-count walks in the first inning. Between those was a single by Manny Machado. But when Bell swung through Gallen's 29th pitch of the first inning, it was still 0-0.
It was also 0-0 after Jurickson Profar popped out on Gallen's 20th pitch of the second inning. Kim had begun the second by grounding out on the ninth pitch he saw, and Jose Azocar had gone the other way with a 1-2 curve for a two-out double down the right-field line. He was stranded there when Profar's pop-up was caught by shortstop Geraldo Perdomo. Of the 10 batters Gallen had faced to that point, seven had seen at least five pitches. Profar had twice gone down in two pitches.
Several times this year, the Padres have been similarly pesky in the first few innings against a quality starter only to fail as they did Saturday and then get little or nothing against that pitcher the rest of the time he was in the game. So when Gallen set down Soto, Machado and Brandon Drury in order in the fifth, there was a feeling of inevitability.
Then came Cronenworth's at-bat to start the fourth inning.
As the Padres grinded Gallen, Musgrove cruised through a Diamondbacks lineup that had scored five runs and hit three home runs against him two starts earlier.
He allowed three hits and went to three balls against just two batters while taking just 75 pitches to get through five innings.
The sixth was a slog.
With Martinez warming in the bullpen, Musgrove began the inning by falling behind Josh Rojas 3-0 before striking him out. A one-out double by Daulton Varsho on a 3-1 cutter brought pitching coach Ruben Niebla to the mound. Musgrove got Jake McCarthy on a fly ball to right field, which brought up cleanup hitter Christian Walker, whose home run against Musgrove on Sept. 3 was one of the 34 he has hit this season. Musgrove dealt to Walker carefully before ending the inning on a full-count slider that Walker tapped off the end of his bat back to Musgrove.
