NEW YORK — Joe Musgrove brushed off chants of “Cheater!” after a bizarre spot check by umpires on the mound, pitching his hometown San Diego Padres into the next round of the playoffs Sunday night with seven innings of one-hit ball in a 6-0 victory over the New York Mets.
Trent Grisham hit an RBI single and made a terrific catch in center field that helped the Padres take the best-of-three National League wild-card series 2-1. Austin Nola and Juan Soto each had a two-run single.
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The Padres advanced to face the top-seeded Los Angeles Dodgers in a best-of-five 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.
“We would love for them to be able to see some postseason games,” manager Bob Melvin said Sunday afternoon. “To an extent, we feel like they’re a part of us.”
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It was the fifth time the Padres have won a playoff series. They took 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 Division Series by the eventual World Series champion Dodgers.
The Padres went 5-14 against the first-place Dodgers this season and finished 22 games behind them in the NL West.
The Atlanta Braves will face the Philadelphia Phillies in the other NLDS, while the American League has the Houston Astros versus the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees taking on the Cleveland Guardians.
For the Mets, a scintillating season ended with a whimper at home in front of empty seats. Baseball’s biggest spenders won 101 games — the second-most in franchise history — but were unable to hold off the Braves in the NL East after sitting atop the division for all but six days.
The Mets were up by 10½ games on June 1 and by seven on Aug. 10 before finally ceding control last weekend. The defending World Series champion Braves snatched away their fifth consecutive division title and a first-round playoff bye on the strength of a head-to-head sweep in Atlanta — and the Mets never fully recovered.
Mets ace Max Scherzer got rocked in a Game 1 loss to the Padres, and after the Mets won Game 2 behind Jacob deGrom to stave off elimination, they mustered almost nothing against Musgrove.
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 Musgrove permitted in his first postseason start.
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Robert Suarez and Josh Hader finished the one-hitter.
Musgrove had his ears searched by an umpire for illegal sticky substances at the behest of Mets manager Buck Showalter in the sixth inning.
Musgrove was working on a one-hitter with a 4-0 lead, and the spin rate was up on all six of his pitches. After Showalter came out on the field, crew chief Alfonso Marquez went to the mound, felt both of Musgrove’s ears and searched his cap and glove.
Fans yelled “Cheater!” at Musgrove, a member of the 2017 Astros World Series champions that were found by Major League Baseball to have stolen signs.
The Astros cheating scandal rocked the sport. Musgrove told The Associated Press this month he feels uncomfortable wearing his championship ring and wants “one that feels earned” with his hometown Padres.
Umpires allowed him to continue pitching, and after striking out Tomás Nido for the second out, Musgrove made a gesture with his hand across his nose toward the Mets dugout.
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After Brandon Nimmo’s inning-ending lineout, Musgrove glared at the Mets dugout and third baseman Manny Machado threw up both arms in a gesture toward San Diego fans behind the dugout on the third-base side.
Musgrove threw the first of a record nine no-hitters across baseball in 2021, a surge that helped prompt a crackdown by MLB on the use of foreign sticky substances by pitchers to improve their grip.
Umpires now routinely check pitchers’ gloves, hats and fingers for sticky stuff after innings, although spot checks like the one requested by Showalter remain unusual.
“I guarantee Musgrove has Red Hot on his ears,” Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Andrew McCutchen tweeted. “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.”
Padres batters had repeatedly stepped out against Bassitt in the early innings in what appeared to be an effort to disrupt his timing.
Musgrove allowed one hit in seven innings with five strikeouts and one walk, throwing 59 of 86 pitches for strikes. His 28 fastballs averaged 2,662 revolutions per minute through six innings, up from a 2,559 average, and their velocity averaged 93.9 mph, 1 mph more than during the regular season. His curve averaged 2,904, up from 2,722.
