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Whirling Darvish (Padres at Mets; 07.22.22)

Danny Suriel/ALOST

akoiki-passport2 – by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief

NEW YORK — Ending the first half of the season as one of the more consistent pitchers in the National League, San Diego Padres starting pitcher Yu Darvish carried that momentum into Friday, coming out of the break with an All-Star performance again a perennial All-Star in a potential playoff preview.

Darvish struck out nine while allowing just one run and four hits through seven innings as he outpitched Max Scherzer in the Padres’ 4-1 victory over the New York Mets at Citi Field on Friday evening. Eric Hosmer hit a two-run home run in the fourth inning that proved to be the game-winner, while Trent Grisham also went deep.

The quality of Darvish’s starts over the past two months have been matched only by his consistency, as tonight marked his 11th consecutive start in which he has done at least six innings. As Scherzer was passing Bob Gibson on the all-time strikeouts list with his performance, Darvish was shutting down the normally-patient Mets offense, at one point retiring 10 straight hitters between the first and fourth innings. No Met reached second base until there were two outs in the seventh inning, when Luis Guillorme’s double to right scored Jeff McNeil from first base to produce the Mets only run of the game.

By that time, the Padres had scored more than enough runs for Darvish to work with, and his performance allowed him to lower his season ERA to a more-than-respectable 3.28.

“It’s seven innings every time out, it feels like,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “It’s All-Star quality stuff. So it doesn’t surprise us. We seem to get spoiled by him every time out.”

*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Friday evening’s contest, with photos taken by ALOST photographer Danny Suriel. After clicking on the first photo to enlarge the picture, make sure to press the left and right arrow buttons to scroll through the rest of the pictures. There are XX pictures in total.

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Tags : MLBNew York MetsSan Diego PadresYu Darvish

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