Shut out: Padres 3, Phillies 0

It started out so well.

It didn’t end that way.

::weeps::

The Phillies lost to the Padres 3-0 this afternoon, but I wish it was only that simple.

Three things happened in today’s game. Well, those things didn’t just happen in general. They happened to the Phillies.

1. Nick Pivetta struck out 11 in five innings. Pivetta had a decent start today. Three runs over five innings isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible. (He also pitched to two guys in the sixth.) The offenses of most teams could muster that many runs, or at least two, but not the Phillies today. but we’ll get to that in a minute. The main thing here is that Pivetta was a strikeout machine. 11 through five innings, and 8 through the first three. The umpire was pretty questionable all day, but damn, Pivetta. He’s the first rookie with 11 strikeouts since Cole Hamels. Sigh.
2. Wil Myers stole three bases off Nick Pivetta... in one inning... including home. Yeah. This was... not a great inning. It was the fourth, and Pivetta already had two outs by the time Myers knocked a single. Myers then wasted zero time stealing second. Cameron Rupp couldn’t even get a throw off, because he is not good. And then before that batter walked, he stole third. Then, Myers and the guy on first pulled off a double steal, which meant Myers stole home. Tommy Joseph almost had the guy at first tagged and in a rundown (I think, I watched the play twice but it was such an overwhelming amount of suck that my computer stopped working), but then threw to Cameron Rupp at home. The throw was too late, and Rupp couldn’t bring his glove around fast enough to tag Wil Myers. Baseball is stupid sometimes.
3. Clayton Richards — yes, him — threw a three-hit shutout. This happened. This actually happened. Clayton Richard, who had a 5.14 ERA coming into this game, threw his first shutout since 2012, and the third of his career. He limited the Phillies to three hits today. It was, in a word, embarrassing. I’m guessing this is payback for Vince Velasquez’s brilliant shutout against the Padres in April 2016. Are we even now, Padres? Are we?

And that’s it. You don’t want to read more about this game, and I don’t want to write more about this game. The Padres are bad, but somehow not as bad as the Phillies, who have descended to heretofore unknown levels of crappiness. They just got swept by the Padres. Woof.