Padres take their measure vs. NL contender

NEW YORK -- The Padres wouldn't mind another cross-country flight to New York City later this year. Perhaps when the weather's a bit cooler than the upper-90s heat in Queens this weekend. Say… early to mid-October?

If, indeed, their series this weekend against the Mets is a playoff preview, the Padres would be well-served to jot down a few notes from their 4-1 victory Friday night at Citi Field. It’s precisely the formula they’ll be looking to replicate.

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San Diego got lights-out starting pitching from right-hander Yu Darvish, who allowed one run over seven dominant innings while striking out nine. Offensively, the Padres didn’t do much against ace Max Scherzer, aside from Eric Hosmer’s opposite-field homer in the fourth. But they made Scherzer work, and when he exited after six innings, they got into the New York bullpen for a couple more runs.

“When you beat a guy like that, that can really give you some momentum headed in the right direction,” Hosmer said. “We did a good job of really just sticking to our approach tonight. We wanted to wait him out. … We got some guys on in some key situations, and we capitalized on it.”

The Mets took a similar approach against Darvish, to no avail. They entered with the clear intention to be patient against Darvish’s array of breaking pitches. So the veteran right-hander simply filled up the strike zone, and was consistently ahead in the count. From there, his split-finger fastball was particularly effective, inducing six whiffs on 12 swings.

“The splitter obviously was working good for me,” Darvish said through a team interpreter. “So I really wanted to use it as much as I can.”

And that’s the beauty of Darvish. He throws something like seven different pitches that require 11 different signs from catcher Austin Nola, because there are different variations of certain pitches. On any given night, any one of those 11 pitches can be his out pitch.

If Joe Musgrove has established himself as the Padres’ ace, Darvish has solidified himself in the No. 2 spot. As No. 2 starters go, you could certainly do a lot worse. Darvish lowered his ERA to 3.28, and he has pitched at least six innings in 11 straight starts. He has pitched seven innings on nine different occasions this year. Only Sandy Alcantara and Aaron Nola have more.

“It’s seven innings every time out, it feels like,” said Padres manager Bob Melvin. “... It’s All-Star quality stuff. So it doesn’t surprise us. We seem to get spoiled by him every time out.”

In the meantime, the Padres got big offensive contributions from two players who struggled for large stretches of the first half. Hosmer, who now owns a .914 OPS against Scherzer in his career, doubled in the second inning before his fourth-inning homer. He later added a walk.

In the seventh, Trent Grisham pulverized a changeup from Mets left-hander Joely Rodríguez for his 10th home run of the season. Grisham has slumped to a .192 batting average this year, and his typically steady defense began to falter in the weeks leading up to the break. But the Padres continue to tout his upside.

“We have quite a few guys that we can get more out of offensively in the second half,” Melvin said. “That’s what we’re hoping for. And Trent is definitely one of those guys. He’s got the ability. … I know he wants to lead off at some point in time, and that’s going to be getting some hits and drawing some walks and getting on base -- and obviously have some power on top of that.”

For Grisham, for Hosmer, and, really, for the Padres as a whole, it was precisely the type of complete victory they needed to start their second half, considering the way the first half ended. San Diego went into the break having dropped 15 of 23, and the losses were ugly -- particularly after they’d started the season with 2 1/2 months of mostly clean baseball.

“We knew we were going to be tested right out of the gate,” Hosmer said. “This is one of the better teams in baseball right now. We knew we had to clean a lot of stuff up to be able to compete with these guys. Certainly a good sign of that tonight. But we’ve got to continue that throughout the second half.”

If they do -- who knows? -- maybe they’ll find themselves right back here come October.