No hook here: Wacha works out of trouble

SAN DIEGO – Maybe in another organization with another manager, Michael Wacha wouldn’t have gotten the chance to finish the top of the sixth inning on Tuesday night. The veteran right-hander had put Reds baserunners on second and third in his third trip through their lineup. He was approaching 100 pitches in a one-run game. Conventional baseball wisdom in 2023 often dictates a call to the bullpen.

But the Padres and manager Bob Melvin are an extreme case. Entering play Tuesday, no team in the National League had gotten more innings from its starting pitchers. That’s by design. The Padres trust their starters -- and, usually, their starters reward that trust.

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Wacha did on Tuesday. He got Nick Senzel, the Reds' hottest hitter, to fly to center field and end the threat. The Padres dropped the game, 2-1, in 10 innings at Petco Park, after Nick Martinez allowed the tying run to score in the eighth. The loss snapped a three-game winning streak, as the San Diego offense -- red-hot since Mexico -- finally cooled, doing little to back Wacha’s strong effort.

“It came down to a couple big hits,” said Padres manager Bob Melvin. “They got one more than we did.”

After Wacha escaped trouble in the sixth, his night was done. He finished having allowed two hits over six scoreless innings on 100 pitches. He had also escaped jams in the first and second innings.

Wacha, of course, is an 11-year veteran who has proven he’s more than capable of handling adverse situations. He had struggled to do so in his past three starts, but his track record spoke for itself. Melvin decided to trust that track record. He often does.

“That’s huge,” Wacha said. “As a competitor, I want to be out there and finish those innings. I believe that I can get the job done. Having a manager that believes that, despite what some numbers say, I want to prove him right.”

Wacha’s very presence in San Diego is tied to that organizational pitching strategy. The Padres already had five capable starters (plus a number of Minor League depth options) when they signed him in mid-February. They still felt that wasn’t enough.

Enter Wacha, who gave the Padres precisely what they wanted: A six-man rotation, deep enough where they could give each starter an extra day of rest between starts. At times during the season, that rotation could be pared to five to account for extra off-days. (As is the case presently.)

But the goal is the same as it was in 2022. The Padres want to entrust their starters with those later innings. It saves their bullpen in the long run. It’s well received by those starters. And, with the veteran arms the Padres have, it usually works, too.

“He deserved a chance right there,” Melvin said. “And he came through for us. Again, with some of the bullpen stuff going on and one more game to go [until an off-day Thursday], I felt like at that point in time, he was going to give us six innings. … I felt like he deserved it.”

The Padres scored their lone run in the top of the third inning on Juan Soto’s RBI double. Soto finished 2-for-5 with a pair of doubles -- the only two extra-base hits of the game for either team.

But the offense didn’t do much else to support Wacha. He exited with a 1-0 lead that proved short-lived. In the eighth inning, Martinez surrendered a walk and two singles, as the Reds tied the game.

It was Martinez who gave way in the starting rotation, when the Padres downsized from six to five. He had previously been lights-out in relief. Tuesday marked the first time in seven relief innings this season that he allowed a run.

“You come in and you have to pitch multiple innings all the time, you’re not going to be perfect,” Melvin said. “I thought he threw the ball really well.”

Ultimately, the Reds won a battle of bullpens. They plated their automatic runner in the top of the 10th inning on Jonathan India’s leadoff single off Luis García. The Padres stranded theirs. Alexis Díaz – one of the sport’s most electric relievers – retired Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Soto in order to end the game.

“First and second, I’ll take my chances with those guys coming up,” Melvin said. “Obviously, their guy pitched really well to close it out with that kind of traffic. … They pitched well tonight, and we were just not good enough offensively.”