SAN DIEGO _ Once upon a time, Jarred Cosart's power right arm ranked among the best prospects in baseball. On Monday, his San Diego Padres debut in a 7-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers illustrated just how far the 26-year-old right-hander has to come to recapture momentum lost.
Acquired Friday from the Miami Marlins in the Andrew Cashner deal, Cosart managed to escape a wild 3 1/3 innings of one-hit ball without yielding a run despite walking six, hitting a batter and throwing just 34 of his 77 pitches for strikes.
He struck out three, had double-play balls help him out of the second and third innings and breathed even easier when Carlos Villanueva stranded two runners in the fourth after a final walk to Ramon Flores forced Padres manager Andy Green to the mound a second time.
The first time was with a trainer in the third inning after a walk to Hernan Perez. But Cosart stayed in the game and Chris Carter bounced into an inning-ending double play on the first pitch he saw.
Pitching coach Darren Balsley also visited the mound twice during an erratic start that _ on paper _ looked a lot like his four trips to the mound for Miami.
Cosart walked six batters in two of those games, but looked like he'd turned a corner in his last start on July 25 when he got through five shutout frames in which he struck out three and walked just one.
On Monday, Cosart walked the first two batters he faced, issued three-ball counts to nine of the 16 batters he faced and exited with 22 walks and 14 strikeouts collected in 23 innings this season.
That's where Cosart is now.
The hope is the Padres can guide him back to where he was when the former 38th-round pick _ a key piece in the Philadelphia Phillies' package for Hunter Pence in 2011 _ was ranked the game's 50th best prospect by Baseball America entering the 2012 season.
"I think the hope for us for him is he realizes the potential he does have," Green said. "He has great stuff. He's got a live arm. He's got an outstanding curveball.
"It's a matter of putting it all together and running with it."
An inning after stranding Cosart's runners, Villanueva surrendered a 1-0 lead on Perez's two-run homer only to have the Padres answer immediately in the fifth.
Travis Jankowski singled, stole second and scored on Alexi Amarista's single to center. Yangervis Solarte _ who returned Monday from the family leave list _ singled in a pair of runs and Ryan Schimpf followed with a run-scoring triple.
Adam Rosales' ensuing sacrifice fly gave the Padres a 6-2 lead.
Wil Myers went 2-for-3 with a double and his 20th steal, Jankowski reached base five times and swiped his 19th and 20th bases and Schimpf also doubled in a two-hit game a day after ending July with a .705 slugging percentage, third-best in the majors.
Villanueva turned in 2 2/3 innings in relief to earn the win, left-hander Brad Hand allowed a run in the eighth on Chris Carter's 25th homer and Brandon Maurer turned in a scoreless ninth.
