Padres dismantle Cubs; Joe Musgrove returns to Petco Park

The right-handed starter has not pitched in an MLB game since October 2, 2024 and he could not have had a better moment to return to the mound. Musgrove came in from the bullpen between the bottom of the eighth and the top of the ninth inning and the crowd reached a fever-pitch as he jogged toward the infield. The San Diego native was a surprise addition to the Wild Card roster for the Padres, but he looked as good as ever in his lone inning of work.

Musgrove struck out the the first batter he faced, Michael Busch , on three pitches and froze him with a curveball at the top of the zone to get the first out in the top of the ninth inning. Musgrove then allowed a single, a walk and a single to load the bases and it appeared as though San Diego would relinquish the shutout, but that was when Musgrove got a pep-talk from Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla and went to work. Musgrove got Pedro Ramirez to pop out on a 1-2 pitch to Jake Cronenworth for the second out of the inning. Musgrove then faced pinch-hitter Michael Conforto who was caught looking on a 2-2 pitch at the top of the zone to seal the win for the Padres and complete a scoreless inning of work in his MLB return.

King set the tone early in his outing with back-to-back strikeouts of Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman . King then got Busch to ground out to Ty France at first base and the inning was over after 11 pitches. The right-handed starter for the Padres never looked frazzled or overmatched against a Cubs offense that has the ability to score runs in bunches. King had a no-hitter through six innings and it was only broken up in the top of the seventh when Nico Hoerner hit a grounder behind third base that Manny Machado had to make sliding backhand stop and was unable to get the ball out of his glove cleanly to try to make the play at first. Hoerner has decent speed so even if Machado had made a clean transfer it would have been close. King got back-to-back strikeouts after the hit to complete his outing.