Joe Musgrove rebounds, Padres spring forward with rout of Giants

SAN FRANCISCO — Joe Musgrove bounced back while the San Diego Padres took another step ahead.

Six days after one of the worst starts of his career — which went bad in a matter of a few minutes — Musgrove threw six scoreless innings in a rematch against the San Francisco Giants on Saturday. And the Padres’ offense methodically added on to an early lead en route to an 8-0 victory at Oracle Park.

The win expanded their lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks to 11/2 games in the race for the National League’s top wild-card spot and kept them 21/2 games ahead of the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves, who are tied for the NL’s sixth and final playoff spot.

The Padres scored a run in the first inning and another in the fourth against Giants rookie Mason Black before getting to the Giants’ bullpen for three runs in the sixth inning and three more in the eighth.

As the offense came up empty on multiple opportunities to make the game less tense early on, Musgrove made it moot.

It was similar to the dominance he displayed for virtually the entirety of his first five starts back from the injured list and how he began his start the previous Sunday.

Musgrove was facing the Giants six days after one of the more remarkable implosions imaginable, in which he went from retiring the first 10 batters he faced on a total of 37 pitches to surrendering six runs in a span of 10 pitches.

“I have some idea what I’ll do differently, but I don’t think there is a lot to find in there,” Musgrove said on the eve of Saturday’s start. “Poor execution on a couple pitches — pitches in the zone where they weren’t missing. … I think it’s maybe adjusting sooner than we did.”

Musgrove altered his pitch mix, favoring his sweeper and curveball far more than the cutter and four-seam fastball he threw a combined 57% of the time on Sunday. He also did not throw as many strikes early in counts.

The result was his allowing three hits and striking out eight while walking none in his fourth quality start in his past five games. Even with the anomaly against the Giants, he has a 2.37 ERA in seven starts (38 innings) since returning from the elbow issues that sidelined him from late May until Aug. 12.

Adrián Morejón pitched a perfect seventh, and Alek Jacob did the same in the eighth before stranding two runners in the ninth as the Padres closed out their second straight shutout of the Giants. San Francisco has not scored in its past three games.

A two-out run in the first inning came on Jurickson Profar’s single and Manny Machado’s double to the wall in center field. Outfielder Heliot Ramos threw off-target toward the infield and Profar was waved home.

Xander Bogaerts’ solo homer in the fourth inning made it 2-0.

The Padres left a runner in scoring position in four of the first five innings before scoring three times in the fifth against Sean Hjelle.

A one-out double by Donovan Solano, one of his four hits and one of his three doubles on the night, started the big inning. With two outs, Luis Arraez’s single extended his hitting streak to 12 games and scored Solano. Fernando Tatis Jr. followed with a single, and Profar walked to load the bases before Manny Machado grounded a single through the middle of the infield to score Arraez and Tatis and make it 5-0.

It was 6-0 after Arraez began the sixth inning with a double and scored on Tatis’ single. And it was 8-0 later in the sixth when Jackson Merrill’s second double of the game drove in Tatis and Profar, who had walked for the third time.