HOUSTON _ In his second start for the Padres, Bryan Mitchell showed Saturday night why the team committed time and money to seeing what he could do given an opportunity to start.
That will be the Padres' lasting positive takeaway from the middle game of this series against the defending world champion Astros.
More immediately, the Padres will lament the 14 strikeouts, three wasted leadoff doubles, a lack of a single hit in nine at-bats with a runner in scoring position and a botched infield pop-up off Phil Maton at the end of a 1-0 loss to the Houston Astros in 10 innings.
The game may also be remembered for the loss of reliever Kirby Yates, who left after throwing one pitch in the eighth inning with an undisclosed injury.
Kazuhisa Makita pitched a scoreless inning in place of Yates, and Robbie Erlin threw a perfect ninth before Brian McCann's leadoff single, a stolen base by pinch runner Derek Fisher and Alex Bregman's two-out towering pop fly that fell untouched to the infield grass ended the game. Eric Hosmer came running in from first base but overran the pop-up and it landed behind him.
That also stopped a streak of 15 scoreless innings thrown by Padres pitchers following the four-hit, one-run gem tossed by Luis Perdomo and three relievers in the Padres' victory here Friday.
Mitchell, acquired in a trade with the Yankees that also brought third baseman Chase Headley and his $13 million salary to San Diego, was to some the great conundrum of the spring, a guy with nine career starts over four seasons being handed a job in the Padres rotation.
The questions intensified and concern even crept into the minds of Padres decision makers after Mitchell pitched tentatively and allowed five runs in five innings in his Petco Park debut last week.
That was against the Colorado Rockies, the National League's best offense from a year ago. As he attempted to bounce back from that, in his way was the American League's top offense in 2017.
Mitchell was almost all he could be for five innings, virtually everything he wasn't in his first start. He fearlessly spun his curve, hit spots down in the zone. He was dominant for stretches, got out of trouble in a few/couple innings and worked through the Astros' hellacious lineup almost three times.
In the sixth, clearly fatigued, having survived a 30-pitch fifth, Mitchell lost control. He walked the leadoff batter for the third straight inning. He followed that by getting his 11th ground out of the game, a Carlos Correa double play.
Successive walks followed, and Mitchell's night was done. Craig Stammen came on and got Evan Gattis to fly out to center. Stammen would pitch the seventh as well.
The Padres struck out 11 times in seven innings against Houston starter Gerrit Cole and stranded runners in scoring position in four innings. They also had a runner on second in the ninth, but Christian Villanueva took off and was tagged out on Hunter Renfroe's one-out grounder to third.
