SAN DIEGO -- Sometimes, Plan C works, too.
There was always a chance Yu Darvish might make his long-awaited return from injury on Sunday night. Manager Mike Shildt called it a “coin flip” two days ago. If not, the Padres had Nick Pivetta lined up to pitch on normal rest, too.
But Darvish’s return will instead come on Monday against the Diamondbacks. And Pivetta’s most recent start in Philadelphia was postponed by a day due to rain, leaving him unavailable to pitch on Sunday. Which left the Padres scrambling.
They called up Kyle Hart, who had made six starts for them this season. But on Sunday morning, pitching coach Ruben Niebla phoned rookie reliever David Morgan to inform him that, actually, he would be the one starting the series finale against the Rangers. Morgan, a converted position player, was 11 the last time he started a game -- pitching on a Little League mound at 46 feet. This was Sunday Night Baseball on national TV.
“I got in here, didn’t really know what to do,” Morgan said after the Padres patched together a 4-1 victory at Petco Park.
The plan had merit. The Padres played to their obvious strength -- the back end of their bullpen, which was mostly fresh. Morgan started. Hart covered the bulk.
The Padres executed Plan C to perfection. They rode a dominant effort from their bullpen and a resurgent night from Fernando Tatis Jr. -- now a three-time All-Star -- to secure a series win.
“More or less, that was the plan,” said Shildt.
Morgan made one trip through the Rangers’ lineup, bending but not breaking. The Rangers scored a run and loaded the bases in the first, but he escaped, thanks to a diving grab at second base from Jake Cronenworth.
Two batters into the second inning, it was Hart’s turn. He entered Sunday with a 6.66 ERA, having mostly struggled in a couple big league stints this season. Hart proceeded to retire all 11 hitters he faced. He was as sharp as he has looked all season.
“Just staying on the attack,” Hart said. “I got ahead, stayed ahead.”
Which left Shildt with a decision he probably relished. The back end of the Padres’ bullpen is one of the best in baseball. Right-hander Jason Adam joined Tatis as a reserve on the NL All-Star team with Sunday’s announcement. But Shildt has said often lately that he feels he has four All-Star relievers in Adam, Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada and Robert Suarez.
Without question, the Padres’ optimal path to winning on Sunday was to turn the ball over to that quartet. But there are long-term implications in play, as well. Adam is one shy of the Major League lead in appearances with 44. Morejon and Estrada are close behind with 43 and 42, respectively.
Here was Hart, pitching as well as he has all season. Darvish will be on a limited pitch count Monday. There was perhaps an opportunity to give that relief group a breather, to play the long game with their workloads. But in a tight NL playoff picture, wins are always the most important commodity.
“There’s a consideration,” Shildt said of leaving Hart in for the sixth. “It’s a one-run game at that point. It would’ve been more of a consideration if some of those guys were unavailable. But it fell into the category of … ‘Hey, [Hart] had done his job.’”
And he couldn’t have done it any better, really. Hart was always going to go once through the Rangers’ lineup, then cover the two left-handed hitters at the top, Josh Smith and Corey Seager. He was tasked with facing 11 hitters, and he retired all of them.
Even Hart seemed to understand what came next:
“Me and D-Mo are just fighting for those first-half outs,” Hart said, referring to Morgan, “because we know who’s behind us. We know we have some pretty talented guys itching to come out of that bullpen.”
Maybe not quite four All-Stars. But close.
The Padres grabbed the lead on Tatis’ fourth-inning double -- he reached base four times on the night. And the bullpen slammed the door from there, retiring 23 of the 25 hitters it faced.
Darvish returns Monday. Ryan Bergert could rejoin the rotation later this week. In an ideal world, the Padres won’t need to win this way very often.
But a bullpen like this one sure gives them options.
AJ Cassavell covers the Padres for MLB.com.