SAN DIEGO —Joe Musgrove had the good nerves again as he pitched in his hometown, not for the first time but for the first time for the home team.
“I’m nervous as hell every time I come home and throw,” he said. “A lot of friends are there rooting for me in my own city. I feel a lot of pressure to want to do well for them. That always seems to bring out the best in me. I’ve had some pretty good success here in the past. Hoping I can keep that rolling.”
He did.
The third of the three offseason acquisitions the Padres added to their starting rotation took his turn Saturday night, and he was the best yet.
Musgrove allowed three hits in six scoreless innings, and the Padres beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-0.
Rookie Ryan Weathers, making his regular season debut after pitching in the National League Division Series, pitched the final three innings for the save.
Musgrove has been a Padres fan as long as he can remember. But he wasn’t alive the last time the team was 3-0 to start a season, which is what they became for just the fourth time in franchise history and the first time since 1984.
The 28-year-old Grossmont High alum used all six pitches in his arsenal multiple times while throwing just 78 pitches in all.
He had pitched at Petco Park. But he’d never done it wearing the jersey of the team for which he grew up cheering.
“I just feel extremely fortunate to be on this team at this time,” Musgrove said Friday. “Growing up here, everyone has waited for a team like this for so long. The baseball fan in me thinks it’s extremely cool now I get to be a part of this team.”
Among the people watching Saturday were Musgrove’s 92-year-old grandmother, his mother and father, two sisters and brother, his high school coach and probably dozens of others he didn’t know about.
In support of the hometown kid, the Padres continued to make themselves at home at the plate.
They were averaging better than four pitches per plate appearance coming in and went right to work on left-hander Caleb Smith, forcing him to throw 37 pitches in a two-run first inning and 26 in a two-run second.
They had walked 12 times in the first two games, tied for second most in the majors, and walked three times in those first two innings. All three of those runners scored.
Manny Machado’s first hit of the season was a 375-foot home run over the right field wall that gave the Padres a 1-0 lead. Wil Myers walked two batters later, Jake Cronenworth reached on catcher’s interference and Ha-seong Kim’s first major league hit drove in Myers and earned the young Korean a standing ovation.
Machado had three hits in his first four at-bats. Myers doubled twice, driving in three runs.
After Musgrove opened the second by lining out to left field on the seventh pitch he saw, Fernando Tatis Jr. drew a walk and went to second when Tommy Pham walked. Both scored on Myers’ double.
As the Diamondbacks bullpen began to stir, Smith got through the third inning on 16 pitches. He was done after four, having thrown 79 pitches.
By the time the fourth inning started, Musgrove had six strikeouts. All of them had come in a run of eight batters he set down following Ketel Marte’s one-out, first-inning single through the wide swath of dirt on the left side open because the Padres were in a shift.
Musgrove got Marte on a fly ball to start the fourth, just the third time Marte was retired in 12 at-bats in the series. Christian Walker followed with a line drive to deep left field that Jorge Mateo leapt and caught as he crashed into the wall. Musgrove’s seventh strikeout to end the inning made it 11 consecutive batters he had set down, taking 44 pitches to do it.
The out streak was stopped by Pavin Smith’s line drive leading off the fifth. Musgrove retired the next three batters and six of his final seven.
After Yu Darvish and Blake Snell both went 4 2/3 innings in the Padres debut with their pitch counts passing through the 80s to quickly to go further, Musgrove was at just 66 pitches through five innings.
Not since he arrived has Musgrove shied from acknowledging his excitement at returning home and pitching at Petco Park, where his family had season tickets in the stands beyond right field and he watched in awe of Jake Peavy, whose number 44 he now wears.
Saturday was his third professional start at Petco Park. Pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2018 and ’19, he allowed three earned runs in 13 1/3 innings.
“I do feel good on the mound,” he said on Friday of being comfortable pitching in Petco Park. “As wild as that may sound … there is a difference. Some ballparks you feel like you’re on top of hitters; in some you feel like you’re out in center field throwing.”
He must have seemed to the Diamondbacks like he was on top of them, as they forced just five throws from the outfield while he was in the game.
