Bill Center, longtime sportswriter for U-T San Diego, is an employee of the Padres.
SAN DIEGO -- Right-hander Jhoulys Chacin has had great success at Petco Park this season. He is 5-2 at home with a 1.94 ERA -- the best home ERA in the National League.
But right-hander Trevor Cahill has even better numbers. The San Diego county native has made four starts at Petco Park this season, and he is a perfect 4-0 with a 0.72 ERA.
Cahill he has allowed three runs (two earned) on 15 hits and seven walks with 28 strikeouts in 25 innings at Petco Park after holding the Giants to one run on eight hits and a walk with eight strikeouts over 6 2/3 innings Sunday. He earned his first win since May 8.
Cahill missed eight starts while on the disabled list from May 17 to July 4 with right shoulder inflammation. He also missed one start in April with a lower back strain.
After Sunday's win, Cahill said he felt the last of the 94 pitches he threw against the Giants was as good as the first.
"Command is always the key for him," Padres manager Andy Green said of Cahill. "His four-pitch mix is very real. His curveball plays. It is his command, being in the strike zone early so he can expand it late. When he does that very well, he's honestly as good as any pitcher in the game.
"His strikeout rate is way up there. So if he gets in the zone early and expands late, he does a great job of making his balls look like strikes. Command is always a big thing for him."
Worth noting
• Catcher Hector Sanchez admits he enjoyed besting the club that brought him to the Major Leagues. Sanchez spent the first nine years of his professional career with the Giants, including parts of five seasons with the Major League club as Buster Posey's backup. He beat his old team with homers Saturday night (a two-run, ninth-inning walk-off) and Sunday (a three-run, first-inning blast).
Since he departed the Bay Area, Sanchez is 8-for-16 against the Giants with four homers and 11 RBIs. He has three homers against San Francisco this season -- the first of which tied a game the Padres eventually won, and the other two qualifying as game-winners. Sanchez is 4-for-11 with three homers and eight RBIs against the Giants this season. Against everyone else, he is 5-for-35 with two homers and five RBIs.
• Not that he was needed over the weekend, but catcher Austin Hedges returns to the lineup tonight in Colorado. Hedges missed a second straight start Sunday after taking a foul tip off the face of his mask Friday night. Green said team doctors described the injury as "sub-concussive," but he said Hedges had been in a "haze."
• Right-hander Luis Perdomo will be going for a fourth straight win in as many starts Monday night against Colorado. The last San Diego starter to win three straight starts was Christian Friedrich last season. The last Padre to win four straight was Jesse Hahn, from June 14-30, 2014.
• Third baseman Cory Spangenberg's three-run homer Sunday represented a season-high for RBIs. It was his sixth homer of the season, and he also hit his first triple since April 9, 2016, at Colorado. Spangenberg is hitting .303 (37-for-122) at home this season with five doubles, a triple, four homers and 15 RBIs.
• Second baseman Carlos Asuaje's career-best, seven-game hitting streak ended Sunday, although he scored in the first after being hit by a pitch.