Yu Darvish struck out 14 Padres over six shutout innings Thursday afternoon as the Chicago Cubs earned a 4-1 victory in San Diego to remain tied with the Milwaukee Brewers for the second National League wild-card berth.
Darvish and relievers Kyle Ryan (two in two innings) and Rowan Wick (three in the ninth) combined for 19 strikeouts. The Padres scored in the ninth and had the winning run at the plate when Wick struck out Luis Urias to end the game with the bases loaded.
Darvish, who allowed two hits and two walks, retired the first eight Padres he faced before opposing pitcher Dinelson Lamet singled off the Darvish’s foot.
The only other hit off Darvish (6-6) was Greg Garcia’s leadoff triple in the sixth. Darvish then struck out Nick Martini, Wil Myers and Eric Hosmer (for the third time). The last eight outs recorded by Darvish came on strikeouts, and the Padres put only six balls into play against him.
Martini opened the Padres’ ninth with a double, and eventually scored when pinch hitter Manny Machado was hit by a Wick pitch with the bases loaded. It was the first major league pinch-hitting appearance for Machado in 4,679 plate appearances.
The Cubs scored three runs on four hits and two walks in five innings against Lamet (2-5), who fanned seven. Both walks issued by Lamet opened innings and resulted in runs.
Anthony Rizzo drew a walk to open the game, moved to third on a single by Kyle Schwarber and scored on a one-out sacrifice fly by Kris Bryant to give the Cubs a quick 1-0 lead.
Schwarber walked to open the fourth and moved to second on Bryant’s single. After both runners advanced on double steal, Happ delivered a two-out, two-run single.
Jason Heyward doubled to open the seventh and moved to third on Happ’s bunt single up the third base line. Heyward scored on Ben Zobrist’s groundout.
San Diego’s Wil Myers was ejected by plate umpire Ramon De Jesus on a called second strike in the ninth, ending the outfielder’s 11-game hitting streak. Myers went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, the last occurring when Travis Jankowski completed his final at-bat.
–Field Level Media
