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He’s here! Luis Urías made his debut today and got a chance to familiarize himself with a natural Padres rival. Jacob Nix had an impressive outing, and there were highlights across the club.
Nix was allowed to go 8.1 innings before being pulled out at 79 pitches and 2 outs to go after blanking the Mariners for a full 8. He gave up a lone home run in the 9th inning, maintaining the Padres’ 2-0 lead. Impressively, Nix got to the 9th without striking out or walking a single batter. He relied on 11 groundouts and 8 fly outs.
Nix's start is the second-longest in Padres history without a K or a BB. During his '76 Cy Young season, Randy Jones pitched a 10-inning complete-game victory over the Giants, and every ball was put in play.
— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) August 29, 2018
Kirby Yates was gifted the save, recording a groundout and a strikeout to get the Padres W.
On defense, the infield was on fire. For the first defensive play of the night, Urías was given little chance to reach a chopping ground ball between first and second. Despite practically being out of range, he dove, snagged, spun, and got the out.
In the third inning with two on and no out, Felix Hernandez bunted straight back to Nix, who spun and got the force at third. Wil Myers was on top of it all, and quickly flung the ball over to first and finished with a nice double play. Nix would end up ranging over for a near-perfect bunt in the fourth to record a single out.
Of course, Freddy Galvis had a dope play at short, diving into the 5.5 hole and hurling the ball for a big one-hopper to snag a runner from getting an infield single.
The Padres stayed on top with awesome pitching from Nix, stellar defense, and a solo HR from Travis Jankowski (only his third of the season) followed by a RBI-single from Hunter Renfroe. The Padres go for the Vedder sweep tomorrow for a noon game. Joey Lucchesi will get the start against Erasmo Ramirez