Joe Musgrove struck out eight batters in six innings, and with two runs driven in each by Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill, the San Diego Padres defeated the San Francisco Giants 8-0 on Saturday night, giving the Giants their third consecutive shutout loss.
Donovan Solano had four of San Diego’s 17 hits, and Xander Bogaerts hit a home run for the Padres, who are leading the National League wild card race. They are now 3 1/2 games behind the first-place Dodgers in the NL West, who have lost four of their last five games.
Musgrove mentioned that the Padres are “chasing right down their backs right now.”
“We’re playing really good baseball,” he said. “Our confidence is high. The approach is right on both sides of the baseball. So I think we’re in a really good spot to make a push at this thing.”
The Giants have lost four of their last five games. They’ve been shut out in three straight games for the first time since 1992 and only the fourth time since the team moved to San Francisco in 1958.
Manager Bob Melvin expressed frustration, saying his team is focused, running hard, and preparing well, but it looks terrible when they’re not hitting and playing poor defense.
He also said the Giants did not show “major league quality” on Saturday.
“It’s the big leagues,” Melvin said. “It looks like the instructional league at times.”
San Francisco has only 14 hits over the past three games and is the first MLB team to be shut out in three straight games this season.
“I feel like every team struggles, but not this bad,” second-place hitter Heliot Ramos said. “We’ve got to be better as a team and individually as well.”
Luis Arráez extended his streak to 135 at-bats without a strikeout for the Padres, the longest since Juan Pierre’s 147 at-bat streak without a strikeout in 2004.
Before the game, Melvin mentioned that the strategy for pitching to Arráez is to be “careful, and hope he hits it at somebody.”
“The issue is what you’ve got coming behind him,” Melvin said. “So, you just have to deal with him and try to make good pitches on him.”
Musgrove (6-5) bounced back after giving up six runs in a loss to the Giants last week, this time keeping San Francisco to three hits and no walks.
Giants starter Mason Black (0-4) allowed two runs and six hits in four innings, losing to the Padres for the second time in a row.
“It’s just been, continue to attack,” Black said about what he’s learned from facing San Diego twice. “It’s almost like I just want to go out there, prove to myself and see what I can do and let them hit the ball.”
After Black left, the Padres gave Musgrove a 5-0 lead with a three-run sixth inning against Sean Hjelle. Arráez had a two-out RBI single, extending his hitting streak to 12 games.
Later in the inning, Machado drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single. San Diego scored three more runs in the eighth, including a two-run double by Merrill.
Padres manager Mike Shildt said having Solano, who came into the game batting .288, hitting eighth shows the strength of San Diego’s lineup.
“Sometimes you look to the bottom as a breather, and there’s no breathers at the bottom of our lineup,” Shildt said. “Having Donovan Solano — if he’s down there hitting eight for us — says quite a lot about the length of our lineup.”
Machado gave the Padres an early lead with a double that scored Jurickson Profar from first base after an error by Ramos on his throw from center field. Bogaerts’ home run in the fourth inning made it 2-0.
