SAN DIEGO_A bothersome groin injury kept Jacob Nix from throwing in front of the big league manager this spring, the 22-year-old right-hander's first invitation to big league camp.
It appears to have been worth the wait.
Nix became the seventh San Diego Padres rookie to debut with six scoreless innings, a gem that Austin Hedges backed up with his ninth homer in a 2-0 win over the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night at Petco Park.
Hedges also singled, stole a base and scored on Freddy Galvis' second-inning single and Matt Strahm, Craig Stammen and Kirby Yates fetched the final nine outs to ensure the win for Nix, who flashed a little bit of everything in retiring 13 of the last 14 hitters he faced and scattering four hits and two walks over the 88-pitch start (63 strikes).
Nix struck out four in the game.
"It's a fastball he's commanded very well throughout his minor league career," Padres manager Andy Green said Friday afternoon. "It's a breaking ball that plays. He doesn't necessarily get a lot of swing and misses, but he gets a lot of soft contact. He's got a real good feel for the change-up and just recently added a slider to the mix. It's a four -pitch mix that gets command of the zone.
"He hasn't punched a lot of guys out, but has been very, very effective at suppressing hard contact."
Nix's debut was the third for a pitcher this week and the fifth for a starting pitcher since left-hander Joey Lucchesi started the second game of the season.
Eric Lauer debuted in late April, Walker Lockett got his first call in June and Brett Kennedy followed suit after two veterans _ Tyson Ross and Jordan Lyles _ were waived over the weekend.
A third pitcher was shown the door Friday when Phil Hughes was designated for assignment to make room for Nix's debut as Green spelled out what had become obvious to anyone paying attention to the active roster.
"We're moving younger," Green said. " ... He wasn't getting a ton of opportunity to pitch because we're moving in a different direction."
Clearly.
Eight of the nine rookies in the home clubhouse Friday are on the pitching staff, four are in rotation and three _ Nix, Kennedy and reliever Trey Wingenter _ were seated next to each other when 1976 NL Cy Young winner Randy Jones stopped by for a visit.
No, it doesn't get much worse than Kennedy's first inning Wednesday _ no pitcher had ever allowed three consecutive homers in his first big league inning.
But all pitchers, Jones reminded them, have days like that.
Jones, for instance, gave up a home run to Willie Mays in his big league debut in 1973 and another to Hank Aaron in his second start.
Kennedy understood what Jones was saying. He even knew the only way to repeat minor league success in the majors _ "you have to do you," he told Nix _ before his debut snowballed on him quickly.
Likewise, Lucchesi allowed two of three runs allowed in his debut in the first inning, Lauer gave up seven in three innings in his first start and Lockett allowed four runs in 3 2/3 innings in his first start.
"It's a different experience for each one of them," Padres pitching coach Darren Balsley said. "Some, it's like they've been here the whole time. Some are super jittery. You just have to let them know that baseball is baseball. It's the same distance from home plate. You make pitches, you're going to be fine. Usually what they did well in the minor leagues if that carries over in the majors it usually works.
"Hitters a little better but if pitchers make pitches they have the advantage."
More often than not, Nix has had the advantage since the Padres selected him in the third round in 2015, a year after his $1.5 million signing bonus as the Houston Astros' fifth-round pick disappeared when Houston quarreled with Cathedral Catholic's Brady Aiken over the health of his elbow. (Their signing bonuses were intertwined due to baseball's draft pool rules.)
On top of that, Nix calling on the players' union in a grievance against the Astros compromised his status as an amateur, costing him his scholarship to UCLA.
So Nix, a Los Alamitos High product, enrolled at IMG Academy on the other side of the country, refined his craft and went to the Padres two rounds earlier the next year for $900,000.
His intriguing four-pitch mix carried him from low Single-A Fort Wayne in 2016 all the way to big league camp in February when a groin injury, the same one that slowed him out of camp in 2017, cost him his first chance to audition for a big league job this spring.
He'd thrown only 58 2/3 innings (1.84 ERA) _ including just six at Triple-A El Paso _ when the Padres gave him a second chance at Petco Park.
In front of 60 friends and family in town, Nix, ranked 14th in the Padres' farm system by MLB.com, didn't disappoint.
He retired the first two hitters he faced before sandwiching two singles around a two-out walk.
A groundball got Nix out of that jam, a flyball to right helped him strand two runners in the second, the start of eight straight outs.
His first punchout came on an inside 93 mph fastball that froze Nick Williams to start the third inning. His second was a spiked, 79 mph curve that Jorge Alfaro swung over to end the fourth. His third stranded a one-out single in the fifth. His fourth started a one-two-three sixth, his last inning in a notable debut.
Only six other Padres pitchers had debuted with six shutout innings. Odrisamer Despaigne was the most recent, throwing seven scoreless at the San Francisco Giants in 2014.
