Clevinger's debut caps wild week for Padres

Regardless of the result -- and a 2-0 loss to the Angels shouldn't make much of a dent in San Diego's playoff push -- Thursday evening felt somewhat triumphant for the up-and-coming Padres.

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Consider this sequence from the second inning: There was Mike Clevinger on the Angel Stadium mound in all his quirky glory -- flowing hair and mustache, herky-jerky delivery, sunflower-emblazoned red glove.

“Same kind of butterflies I got for my first postseason,” Clevinger said of his Padres debut.

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Decked out in brown for the first time, Clevinger fooled Shohei Ohtani with a slider at the top of the strike zone for his first Padres strikeout. As Ohtani watched strike three, Austin Nola popped from his crouch and delivered a missile to second base to nab Justin Upton attempting to steal.

Yes. Mike Clevinger pitching. Austin Nola catching. For the San Diego Padres.

It's been quite a week.

Clevinger -- the biggest prize from the Padres’ unprecedented Deadline spree -- will have better starts as a Padre. He'll have worse starts, too. For a pitcher who entered play Wednesday with a 3.20 career ERA, Clevinger's debut was roughly par for the course.

The 29-year-old right-hander worked six innings of two-run ball, though he only struck out two. He used a five-pitch mix to induce plenty of weak contact. But Clevinger hadn’t pitched since Aug. 26 and was understandably a bit rusty, particularly with his breaking pitches.

“I had my heater, and I had my location,” Clevinger said. “That’s about all I had today.”

Clevinger also had never thrown to Nola, who joined the Padres on Monday in a trade with the Mariners.

“For us to kind of be figuring each other out right now, finding that trust between pitcher-catcher, this was a pretty good grind,” Clevinger said. “That’s a good lineup over there.”

San Diego's offense did little to back Clevinger, but that’s sort of beside the point. The Padres entered play Thursday leading the Majors in runs, wRC+ and a handful of other hitting metrics. Their offense is fine.

Their rotation should be fine, too, now that Clevinger is at the front of it. His presence makes San Diego’s starting five particularly formidable.

Should the Padres end their 14-year postseason drought, it’ll probably be Clevinger on the mound in Game 1. Some arrangement of Dinelson Lamet, Chris Paddack, Zach Davies and Garrett Richards would follow.

“Knock on wood we stay in a good spot health-wise,” manager Jayce Tingler said. “But we love our rotation.”

So does Clevinger, who raved when asked for his early impressions of his new teammates.

“This team already has all the pieces,” Clevinger said. “Before I got here, they had the pieces to win the whole thing if things went right. I just wanted to show them I’m going to contribute.”

Even in a loss, Clevinger probably made his point. Despite a week’s worth of uncertainty and cross-country travel, he allowed just two runs, on singles from Andrelton Simmons and Upton. Clevinger seemed to find a groove as the game progressed, retiring eight of the last nine hitters he faced.

“He's got a great arm,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said. “He's got a lot of swagger about him. He's into it; I love all of that. ... We got those two runs. He was very stubborn, but we hit the ball well.”

To hear Clevinger tell it, it’s been an eventful week. He spent Sunday bombarded by text messages from friends, keeping him apprised of the latest trade speculation. At one point Sunday night, Clevinger learned he was almost certainly going to be traded. But he didn’t know where.

The following morning, the Padres landed Clevinger in a nine-player blockbuster. So Clevinger got an evening flight back to Cleveland, where he packed his entire apartment alone (following social distancing guidelines). The following day, he arrived in San Diego, dropped his stuff in a hotel room and caught the team bus to Anaheim.

“I just wanted to get back out there and start getting on that five-day routine and get comfortable,” Clevinger said. “Just get this first one under my belt, and now we can start rolling.”