It hadn't happened since June: Gallen on the hook

PHOENIX -- In his short career, D-backs right-hander Zac Gallen has established himself as one of the better pitchers in the National League, someone who likely will be in the top five on some Cy Young Award ballots.

It's why scoring two runs off him in a 2-0 win over the D-backs felt so good for the Padres on Saturday night at Chase Field.

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"Now we didn’t get a ton of runs off of [Gallen], but two off of him now, the way he’s been pitching, feels good," Padres manager Bob Melvin said.

Gallen hadn't lost a game since June 10, a span of 16 starts during which he had a 2.24 ERA. He'd been even better over his last 10 starts, going 8-0 with a 0.97 ERA.

That stretch included a club-record scoreless streak of 44 1/3 innings, which ended during his last start in Denver.

From the very beginning Saturday night the Padres’ game plan was clear.

"It was all about trying to make him work and frustrate him a little bit and make him throw a lot of pitches," Melvin said.

Gallen can usually combat that by throwing plenty of strikes, but he didn’t have his best command in this one, nor did he have a good feel for his curveball. As a result, he threw 29 pitches in the first inning and another 20 in the second inning.

With pitchers rarely going much above 100 pitches these days, throwing 49 pitches in the first two innings, really shortens the amount of innings a starter is going to be able to last.

"It was more of a grinder outing, really," Gallen said. "My timing wasn't right, just didn't feel super comfortable out there. I was just having trouble getting into a rhythm out there. They were taking a lot of pitches and I just didn't have the greatest command, but I made do with what I had out there."

Gallen thought he had gotten out of the first inning by striking out Jake Cronenworth on a 2-2 pitch, but home-plate umpire Doug Eddings disagreed, calling an inside pitch a ball. That forced Gallen to throw another six pitches in the frame.

"I threw an extra [six] pitches in the first," Gallen said. "Maybe kind of a little gassed after that and was just having trouble catching my breath and [getting] my feet under me."

It was Cronenworth who started the fourth-inning rally in which the Padres scored both of their runs. He led off with a double to the gap in right-center, advanced to third on a heads-up play during Josh Bell's groundout and scored on a sacrifice fly.

"Zac's probably the hottest starting pitcher in baseball right now," Cronenworth said. "One of the best runs I've seen. But I think our lineup did a really good job, from Pitch 1 until he was out of the game, competing every single pitch."

Luis Campusano capped the inning with a homer to left-center on a fastball that Gallen wanted to hit the outside corner with.

"I think it just came, just ran back," Gallen said. "That's where I think most of the damage against my fastball was, just in that one spot, middle down."

After five innings, Gallen was sitting at 92 pitches when he told manager Torey Lovullo that he wanted to try and get through the sixth inning. Lovullo agreed to send him back out for the sixth with the condition being that he was going to get him not far after 100 pitches.

Gallen was able to strike out Brandon Drury to open the inning, but then Cronenworth worked an eight-pitch walk to end Gallen's night.