Chris Young watched Friday’s game at Globe Life Field from a suite behind home plate. It is fast becoming a familiar perch. In December, Young joined the Texas Rangers’ front office. He has completed an uncommon trifecta as a player, an executive in the commissioner’s office and, now, a general manager.
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On Friday night, his post afforded him a view of something rarer.
Young began the evening as the last Padres pitcher to single-handedly take a no-hit bid into the ninth inning. When it was over, he had been reduced to a more obscure footnote. His new team had absorbed a 3-0 defeat. Yet Young was able to maintain a sense of perspective. After all, he knows better than anyone what it is like to fall short of history.
“It was obviously a special night for Padres baseball and San Diego fans … just unfortunately at the expense of the Texas Rangers,” Young said by phone. “But that’s OK.”
For the Rangers, it was one game. For the Padres, it was catharsis wrapped in serendipity. Joe Musgrove, a San Diego-area native, had done what Young came so close to doing, what so many others failed to do. The right-hander who grew up a short drive from Petco Park had thrown the first no-hitter in the Padres’ 53-year history.
“I think a no-hitter, regardless of where you’re playing, is really special,” Musgrove said. “But it almost seems like this was meant to be.”
San Diego no longer is the only major-league franchise to have never thrown a no-hitter. Musgrove no longer is seeking his first no-hitter, at any level. The two milestones collided in the Padres’ 8,206th regular-season game, in Musgrove’s second start with his hometown club. Musgrove came within a hit batter, Joey Gallo, of pitching a perfect game.
The Padres exuberantly settled for the next best thing. When it was over, after Musgrove recorded the 27th out with his 112th pitch, Victor Caratini — who had caught the most recent major-league no-hitter — sprinted into Musgrove’s arms. Left-hander Blake Snell finally left his post along the dugout railing, where he had been frozen for innings. The entire team converged on the mound, mobbing the pride of Grossmont High.
What a moment. 🤩
🎥: @MLB pic.twitter.com/rKZcWZgocT
— The Athletic MLB (@TheAthleticMLB) April 10, 2021
“For him to do it growing up in San Diego and this being his team, it’s about the perfect story written,” manager Jayce Tingler said.
Musgrove had authored an indelible chapter, made even more striking by decades of near-misses. Friday marked the 24th time the Padres carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning. In his five seasons with San Diego, Young did it three times himself. In 2006, the second of those bids ended on a ninth-inning, pinch-hit home run.
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Back then, Musgrove was merely a lifelong Padres fan in junior high. Fifteen years later, he and Young remain strangers. Life has taken them on separate journeys. On Friday, of course, their paths landed them inside the same ballpark.
“I don’t know him personally, but I have mutual friends and people who’ve worked with him,” Young said. “I’ve only heard just positive things about him, and so to see a good person succeed like that and really make history for a franchise, a wonderful place and great fans, I’m thrilled for Joe. I’m thrilled for Padres fans.”
Young and the Rangers had anticipated a difficult matchup. Last weekend, Musgrove logged six shutout innings in his Padres debut. Texas manager Chris Woodward later watched all 78 pitches from that start. He took note of Musgrove’s command of multiple breaking balls. He steeled himself for more of the same.
“I was hoping he’d (be) not as good today as he was last outing,” Woodward said late Friday. “But clearly he was a little bit better.”
Musgrove retired the first 11 Rangers batters in order. He then plunked Gallo on the knee. He later referenced that misfire as, perhaps, good fortune. “Maybe if I hadn’t hit him, he would’ve gotten a base hit,” Musgrove said. He praised his defense and Caratini, describing the catcher as “a scientist” behind the plate.
Yet Musgrove also created his own luck. He recovered from allowing his first base runner to retire the next 16 batters. He deployed all six of his pitches, mixing them expertly. He threw a four-seam fastball or a sinker just 12 times. He leaned on his slider, his cutter and his curveball in near-equal parts. The Rangers flailed to the tune of no walks and 10 strikeouts.
“We hit a few balls hard, but they were right at guys,” Young said. “Their defense was well-positioned, and those are the breaks you need sometimes. But he didn’t need many of them. His stuff was great.”
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The sailing was not initially smooth. Musgrove said he battled his mechanics early in the game. He estimated he downed as many as 12 water bottles throughout the night, following his usual adherence to in-start hydration. The practice almost disrupted his rhythm. “I had to piss so bad in the fourth or fifth inning,” he said.
By the sixth, adrenaline had begun to supersede everything else; Musgrove never did take a bathroom break. By the seventh, he was approaching 90 pitches, still efficient, still in command. By the eighth, he was challenging a personal mark; Musgrove had never recorded a 25th out in a start.
As the ninth inning dawned, Musgrove had thrown 103 pitches. There was no activity in the Padres’ bullpen. In the visiting dugout, there was an understanding of the moment.
“He was in control of the zone all night,” Tingler said. “You put your chips in, you get pot-committed and you go.”
“I wasn’t coming out of the game,” Musgrove said.
“I wasn’t concerned (Musgrove would be lifted), just knowing how good his stuff had been all night,” Young said. “I had no doubt he would be coming back for the ninth.”
In the final inning, Musgrove threw nine pitches, not a fastball among them. He got a lineout from David Dahl; this time, the Padres’ pursuit of history would not be foiled by a pinch hitter. He coaxed a groundout from Leody Taveras. He did the same to Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Pandemonium ensued.
When the on-field and clubhouse celebrations were over, Musgrove sat in front of a camera, still trying to process what had just transpired. He said he was exhausted, noting the number of breaking pitches he had thrown. He had not yet spoken with his father, a longtime Padres fan who nurtured Musgrove’s love of the hometown club. He remarked that, in a couple of weeks, Friday’s performance would be “old news.”
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These Padres, after all, have declared their intention to challenge for San Diego’s first major championship. They spent part of the offseason dramatically upgrading their starting rotation. They traded for Snell and Yu Darvish in swift succession. Weeks later, they swung a deal for Musgrove. At one point, they had thought they might acquire all three starters in a span of 24 hours.
That they landed Musgrove anyway qualified as an internal victory. The Padres had targeted the 28-year-old as a breakout candidate, a mid-rotation arm on a good team, with the potential for more. So far, the trade looks prescient. In his Padres debut, Musgrove blanked the Arizona Diamondbacks. On Friday, after an 8,205-game drought, he quenched San Diego’s thirst with nine dominant innings. He did it wearing No. 44, a tribute to Jake Peavy, his favorite former Padres player.
This chapter will never be old news.
“It feels incredible,” Musgrove said. “The city of San Diego has shown me so much love, even before I came to the Padres, just a San Diego kid who made it to the big leagues. So it feels even better to be able to do it in a Padres uniform and selfishly be able to do it for my city and have everyone know that the kid from Grossmont High threw the first no-hitter.”
(Photo: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
