Mize owns rough Padres debut after whirlwind week

PHOENIX -- It’s been a whirlwind few days for Casey Mize. Perhaps that’s the best way to explain his disappointing first start with the Padres on Wednesday in Arizona.

Mize, a last-minute addition before Monday's Trade Deadline on Monday, was out of sorts in his first start for his new team. He was hit hard, allowing eight runs on nine hits across 3 1/3 innings in an eventual 10-4 loss.

“Not the first impression I wanted to make for my teammates and for the fans,” Mize said. “Pretty tough time to have the worst start of my career. I just put us in a really tough spot, didn't give us a chance to win. So, frustrated and embarrassed by that.”

The defeat dropped the Padres two games back of both the D-backs and Phillies for the final two National League Wild Card spots. Here are some takeaways from Chase Field:

A rough debut

Mize hadn’t pitched in 11 days. For most of that time, he didn’t know when -- or where -- his next start would be. He found himself fitting in sporadic bullpens without much clarity. He was traded on Monday, joined the team on Tuesday, then was handed the ball on Wednesday.

So, on the surface, there were ways to explain away a poor outing like this one. Mize wasn’t having it.

“I’m not going to make any excuses, man,” he said. “I need to pitch better. We need to win.”

Mize became the first pitcher to allow eight runs in his Padres debut since Jhoulys Chacín allowed nine in 2017 (which is tied with Dewon Brazelton in 2006 and Matt Whiteside in 1999 for the franchise record).

The Padres, clearly, envision better days ahead for Mize, who entered Wednesday’s start with a 2.70 ERA and saw that jump to 3.40. They sent two prospects -- including left-hander Kash Mayfield, ranked by MLB Pipeline as their No. 2 prospect -- to Detroit to acquire Mize on Monday.

This was not exactly a soft landing -- against a tough D-backs offense in a tough place to pitch. But the Padres landed Mize thinking they’d solidified a rotation that could get them to October, and this was a crucial outing within the context of that pursuit. He struggled.

“It’s pretty frustrating for me,” Mize said. “But I’ll put in a good week’s work and I’ll be better next time.”

Mize’s next start would likely be lined up for Monday night against the Brewers at Petco Park.

A disappointing night for the bats, too

If Mize’s poor start could be explained away, the Padres’ showing on offense was a bit harder to understand.

D-backs rookie Mitch Bratt hadn’t surpassed five innings in any of his starts this season -- Minors or big leagues. But he held the Padres scoreless across seven one-hit innings on Wednesday night. He struck out nine.

“For whatever reason, what he was throwing up there wasn’t matching our hitters’ swings and our eyes,” manager Craig Stammen said. “His fastball was getting on us, definitely. It was a lot harder than what the scoreboard said it was.”

Look, offense is obviously fickle. It comes and goes. The Padres’ offense has been good enough for long enough that it has earned the benefit of the doubt. There’s every chance it’ll bounce back on Thursday. (Heck, the Padres even scored four in the ninth to make it respectable.)

“Just one game over the course of 162 that just didn’t go our way,” Stammen said.

A crucial finale looms

There’s no time for the Padres to dwell on Wednesday’s loss. Because Thursday’s series finale is a critical one in the context of the playoff picture.

At the end of the day, the two NL West rivals will be separated by either one game or three. Additionally, they won’t meet again until the final weekend of the season, when they’re set to play three games at Petco Park. They’ve split both series they’ve played thus far -- and could still split this one if the Padres win Thursday.

That would even the season series at five games apiece. And, remember, head-to-head record now serves as the first postseason tiebreaker. If this race is going to go down to the wire, the Padres would greatly prefer to enter the final weekend needing to only win that series (rather than sweep) to earn that tiebreaker.

They can take solace in this fact: Lately, when the Padres have dropped games, they’ve bounced back nicely. They did it Tuesday. They did it last week against the Giants.

“Our team is a bounce-back team,” Stammen said.

And they’ll need to do so again on Thursday.