Wacha flirts with no-no, fans career-high 11

SAN DIEGO -- The Padres were the last MLB team with a no-hitter. Joe Musgrove ended that ignominy two years ago in Texas. To this day, however, the hometown fans have yet to see one of theirs author a gem in person.

Michael Wacha did his best to change that Monday night.

Wacha took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Royals before surrendering a leadoff single to right field by Michael Massey. That was Wacha’s 103rd and final pitch during the Padres’ 4-0 victory at Petco Park in the series opener.

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“Early on, you had a pretty good idea that he was going to pitch a good game,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said.

Wacha was masterful, befuddling a young lineup with changeups and controlling the strike zone with all his pitches. The 31-year-old right-hander, who signed with the Padres as a free agent on Feb. 16, struck out a career-high 11 batters, walked one and hit another.

Wacha threw 37 changeups, and the Royals swung at 25 of them. They swung and missed at 10 and fouled off 11. Only four times did a Royals batter put a ball in play against a Wacha changeup. That, however, included Massey’s hit on an 0-1 count -- with 106.7 mph exit velocity.

“Everything was working,” Padres catcher Austin Nola said, “four-seam location, the changeup and the pace of the game. He kept hitters on their toes all game.”

Wacha kept Melvin squirming, too. By racking up 11 K’s, Wacha pushed his pitch count to the point the manager got the bullpen in motion even with the no-hitter intact. By the time Massey broke it up, Melvin was making his decisions batter by batter.

It took a bit of lobbying on Wacha’s part to even see that first batter in the eighth.

“I wanted to go back out there,” Wacha said. “I told him, ‘Hey, let’s keep it rolling.’ I really appreciated him trusting me to go back out there. I know the pitch count was up there. … I was doing the math. I would have liked a three-pitch inning in the eighth and another in the ninth.”

Wacha knew the no-hitter was in reach, having been even further along before. As a Cardinals rookie phenom in 2013, he was one out away in his final regular-season start when Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman broke it up with an infield single. In 2018, Wacha got to the ninth again before Pittsburgh’s Colin Moran singled.

Padres history aside, Wacha wanted another crack at it for himself.

“Just trying to stay on the attack,” he said. “Maybe they’d hit it to somebody.”

Wacha’s changeup is his signature pitch, for certain. But the 37 changeups he threw Monday marked the second-highest total of his career. He complemented that with 91-94 mph fastballs spotted perfectly high in the strike zone and cutters and curveballs to keep the Royals from honing in on any certain pitch.

Massey, the only player to solve the changeup, was duly impressed.

“You see it well, and then you just miss it. It just floats in there,” Massey said. “And then he was able to pair the fastball with it at the top of the zone, too, so you got to respect 93-94 up top, as well. There really wasn’t a perfect plan off him tonight. You got to give him credit.”

Signed to provide stability in the back of the Padres’ rotation, Wacha has done more than that. At 4-1, he leads the team in wins. His 44 1 /3 innings pitched also lead the club. And his 41 strikeouts put him with the likes of Yu Darvish (47) and Blake Snell (43).

Wacha had 10 K’s at Atlanta on April 8 to match his career high, and now he has topped that.

“It’s just the mix,” Wacha said, “figuring out my stuff and how it plays. Just trying to keep them off balance -- doing a lot of studying of these guys and how to attack them. I feel like whenever the changeup is working, you get guys sitting on it and the fastball plays. If they’re looking fastball, the changeup plays, as well as other pitches.”

Said Melvin: “He pitches a little bit differently than we see some guys nowadays. But he’s obviously very effective. If you looked at the [stat] line, you’d think he was a power pitcher.”