SAN DIEGO (AP) — Yu Darvish efficiently dismantled the best team in the National League.
The 35-year-old right-hander held the Mets hitless until the sixth inning and Jurickson Profar launched a leadoff home run to help the San Diego Padres beat New York 7-0 on Tuesday night.
Darvish (5-3) allowed only two hits in seven innings while striking out six and walking none on 100 pitches. He hit three of the Mets’ first five batters with pitches, including Brandon Nimmo to open the game. Darvish plunked Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil to start the second and then retired 14 straight until Mark Canha singled for the Mets’ first hit with two outs in the sixth.
Padres manager Bob Melvin said Darvish’s start was impressive against “a lineup that’s just been on fire. To get off to such a good start — I don’t want to say breeze through; nothing’s easy about getting through that lineup. But to go as long as he did without giving up a hit… If it was still 4-0 he was probably going to go out for the eighth. He probably had about 110, 115, with the time off they’re getting, six and seven days at times. Pretty good against that lineup.”
The Padres scored three runs in the seventh, so there was no need to send Darvish back out there.
“I felt good. I thought I was being really aggressive, pounding the strike zone,” Darvish said through a translator. “You try to sort of preserve and save the bullpen. I was glad I was able to do that.”
The Mets, who won the series opener 11-5 on Monday night behind Eduardo Escobar’s cycle and six RBIs, lost Alonso when the slugger was hit by a pitch on his right hand leading off the second. The team said initial X-rays were negative and further tests were planned.
New York has been hit by a pitch 40 times this season, six more than any other major league…
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