PHOENIX — The Padres were trying to do a lot of things at the outset of Tuesday’s game.
Turned out, they were also attempting to throw another no-hitter.
After Joe Musgrove threw the first no-hitter in franchise history on April 9 — 8,206 games after the team's inception in 1969 — the Padres came within five outs of getting their second just 125 games later.
Blake Snell threw seven hitless innings, and Pierce Johnson got an out in the eighth before David Peralta’s flare into left field brought both cheers and boos from the Chase Field crowd.
Johnson got the final two outs of the eighth, and Mark Melancon allowed two singles before closing out his 36th save, and the Padres beat the Diamondbacks 3-0 to accomplish everything else on Tuesday’s to-do list.
They moved into a tie for the second (and final) National League wild-card spot, which they had dropped out of on Aug. 22.
They won a second consecutive game for the first time since Aug. 8 and 9, which was 17 games earlier, a span in which they had won just four times.
They clinched their first series victory at Chase Field since April 2019, since which they had gone 0-4-1 in five series and lost 13 of 16 games inside the airplane hangar with the synthetic grass.
It was here on Aug. 14 that a light-throwing Diamondbacks left-hander named Tyler Gilbert threw just the fourth no-hitter in major league history by a pitcher making his first career start. The team he did it against? The Padres.
The Padres had just five hits Tuesday, but one of them was Manny Machado’s 420-foot two-run homer in the fifth inning. Another was Jurickson Profar’s single to right field that scored Adam Frazier from first base in the sixth.
The rest of the highlights belonged to Snell, who finished up his best month with the Padres by striking out 10 and walking two on Tuesday.
Snell took 37 pitches to get through the first two innings before breezing through the next four. He was at 91 pitches after six innings and 107 after seven.
He had thrown a career-high 122 just six days earlier, so it was not a surprise to see him being talked to by manager Jayce Tingler in the dugout and then shaking hands with pitching coach Ben Fritz in the top of the eighth.
Johnson, who had been warming up in the seventh, came on and got Josh Rojas on a fly ball to Profar in left field before Peralta poked a ball just past shortstop Jake Cronenworth and in front of Profar.
Snell’s fastball picked up steam as the game went on, from 94-95 mph in the first inning to 95-96 in the second and third to a consistent 97 in the fourth and fifth. All five fastballs he threw in the sixth were at least 95.5 mph.
The Diamondbacks were frequently late to the pitch, which Snell fueled by keeping them off-balance with his curveball and slider. He mixed the two secondary pitches differently than in most starts, going with the curve more often early Tuesday.
Snell, the 2018 American League Cy Young winner who was acquired in December and expected to be one of the Padres’ top two pitchers, had a 1.72 ERA in six August starts. His 36 2/3 innings in that span were more than he had totaled in any six consecutive starts since near the end of his Cy Young season.
This stretch has contrasted greatly with the season’s first three months, during which he compiled a 5.44 ERA.
Snell went a career-high 7 2/3 innings in his previous start, holding the Dodgers to three hits and striking out 10 last Wednesday. The only run he allowed that night was on Will Smith’s homer with one out in the eighth inning.
Snell's 121 innings are the third most he has ever thrown in a season behind the 180 2/3 he threw in 2018 and the 129 1/3 he threw in 2017. His 25 starts this season are second most in his career, behind the 31 he made in 2018.
Snell did not get his first strikeout Tuesday until the second inning, when he struck out the side and then struck out four of the next five to get two outs into the fourth. A run of 11 straight batters retired was broken when he walked Christian Walker, but he ended the fourth with a fly ball out.
He struck out the first two batters in a 1-2-3 fifth inning and took just eight to get through the sixth. His past two starts are the first time he has worked into the seventh inning in consecutive starts since 2018.
The Padres, who had scored six runs in 9 2/3 innings and beat the Diamondbacks in both of Gallen’s two previous starts against them this season, created plenty of chances before finally scoring Tuesday.
After going down in order in the first inning on nine pitches, the Padres put a runner in scoring position in three straight innings and failed in all six of their at-bats with those runners on second or third base.
Machado didn’t wait for a runner to get to scoring position in the fifth. Batting with two outs and Jake Cronenworth on first base following a single, Machado lined a 1-2 pitch at 111.3 mph an estimated 420 feet. It was his first home run in 39 at-bats.
After Frazier walked with two outs in the sixth, Profar hit a line drive to right field that sent Frazier sprinting around the bases and sliding into home just ahead of the tag.
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