Padres finish off Mets, move on to NL Division Series

AP photo by John Minchillo / The San Diego Padres celebrate as they pose for a team photo on the field after defeating the host New York Mets 6-0 on Sunday night to win a wild-card series in the NL playoffs.
AP photo by John Minchillo / The San Diego Padres celebrate as they pose for a team photo on the field after defeating the host New York Mets 6-0 on Sunday night to win a wild-card series in the NL playoffs.

NEW YORK — With a magnificent performance on a memorable night in his ballclub's history, Joe Musgrove brought this one home for the San Diego Padres and really stuck it to the New York Mets.

The right-hander brushed off chants of "Cheater!" after a bizarre spot check by umpires on the mound, pitching his hometown Padres into the next round of the playoffs with seven innings of one-hit ball Sunday in a 6-0 victory over the listless Mets.

"You could see the resolve in his face and the demeanor he had," San Diego manager Bob Melvin said. "He was on a mission today."

Trent Grisham hit an RBI single and made a terrific catch in center field that helped the Padres take the best-of-three wild-card series 2-1. Austin Nola and Juan Soto each had a two-run single.

San Diego advanced to face the top-seeded Los Angeles Dodgers in a best-of-five National League Division Series beginning Tuesday, ensuring the Padres will play in front of their home fans in the postseason for the first time in 16 years when they return to Petco Park for Game 3.

"Can't wait to get back there. They deserve it," Melvin said.

San Diego went 5-14 against the first-place Dodgers this season and finished 22 games behind them in the NL West.

Sunday marked the fifth time the Padres have ever won a playoff series, and they took this one without star shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. He was sidelined all season, first by a wrist injury and then a suspension for failing a test for performance enhancers.

They won a first-round matchup against the St. Louis Cardinals in their own ballpark with no fans permitted after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season before being swept in the NLDS by the Dodgers, who won the World Series that year.

For the Mets, a scintillating season ended with a whimper at home in front of empty seats. Baseball's biggest spenders won 101 games — second most in franchise history — but were unable to hold off the Atlanta Braves in the NL East after sitting atop the division for all but six days during the regular season.

New York was up by 10 1/2 games on June 1 and seven on Aug. 10 before finally ceding control the final weekend of the regular season. The reigning World Series champions snatched away their fifth consecutive division title and a first-round playoff bye on the strength of a head-to-head sweep in Atlanta.

Relegated to the wild-card round, New York never fully recovered. Max Scherzer got rocked in Game 1, and after the Mets won Game 2 behind Jacob deGrom to stave off elimination — and even then had to get out of a shaky ninth against the pesky Padres — they mustered almost nothing against Musgrove and finished with one lonely hit.

No. 3 starter Chris Bassitt lasted just four innings, giving up three runs and three hits with three costly walks to batters near the bottom of the order.

Pete Alonso's leadoff single in the fifth and Starling Marte's walk to start the seventh were the only baserunners permitted by Musgrove in his first postseason start.

Robert Suarez and Josh Hader finished up for the Padres with perfect relief. After the final out, San Diego players and coaches gathered for happy hugs and handshakes on the field as a small but vocal throng of Padres fans dressed in brown and yellow cheered and chanted "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!"

Then the Padres took the party inside the visitors' clubhouse, dancing and dousing each other with booze in a loud, raucous celebration.

"They flat-out beat us," Alonso said.

Musgrove grew up a Padres fan in the San Diego suburbs and pitched the franchise's first no-hitter last year in his second start with the team.

He was working on a one-hitter and warming up for the sixth inning Sunday when Mets manager Buck Showalter came out of the dugout and spoke to first base umpire Alfonso Marquez.

All six umps huddled and then went to the mound as Marquez, the crew chief, felt Musgrove's glove, cap — even his ears — apparently searching for any illegal sticky substances.

"I've seen him do it before, checking the pitcher," Musgrove said. "I get it, dude. They're on their last leg, they're desperate, they're doing everything they can to get me out of the game."

Musgrove said Marquez concluded "'There's nothing on there.'"

Umpires let Musgrove continue, and he worked a 1-2-3 sixth punctuated by a pointed gesture toward the New York dugout.

"It motivated me a little bit, man. It fired me up," he said.

The spin rate was up on all six of Musgrove's pitches Sunday.

"I love him as a pitcher, always have," Showalter said. "I feel kind of bad about it, but it won't cast anything. He's too good a pitcher, and they're too good — without getting into a lot of things, the spin rates and different things that I'm sure you're all aware of when you see something that jumps out at you. I get a lot of information in the dugout that — we certainly weren't having much luck the way it was going, that's for sure.

"I'm charged with doing what's best for the New York Mets. If it makes me look however it makes me look or whatever, I'm going to do it every time and live with the consequences. I'm not here to not hurt somebody's feelings. I'm going to do what's best for our players and the New York Mets. I felt like that was best for us right now. There's some pretty obvious reasons why it was necessary."

Fans yelled "Cheater!" at Musgrove, a member of the 2017 Houston Astros, who won the World Series and were later found by Major League Baseball to have stolen signs illegally — with the aid of electronics — to help their hitters.

"Joe Musgrove is a man of character," Melvin said. "Questioning his character, to me that's the part I have a problem with, and I'm here to tell everybody that Joe Musgrove is as above board as any pitcher I know, any player I know, and unfortunately that happened to him, because the reception that he got after that was not warranted."

The Astros' cheating scandal rocked the sport. Musgrove has said he feels uncomfortable wearing his championship ring and wants "one that feels earned" with the Padres.

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder posted his own theory on Twitter.

"I guarantee Musgrove has Red Hot on his ears," McCutchen wrote. "Pitchers use it as mechanism to stay locked in during games. It burns like crazy and IDK why some guys thinks it helps them but in no way is it 'sticky.' Buck is smart tho. Could be trying to just throw him off."

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