Bill Center, longtime sportswriter for U-T San Diego, is an employee of the Padres.

With Chris Paddack working the bookend games at both sides of the trip, Padres starting pitchers had three quality starts and a 4.05 earned run average on their just-completed seven-game (3-4) road trip to San Francisco and Arizona.

In his two starts against the Giants and Diamondbacks on the trip, Paddack gave up one run on nine hits and two walks with 16 strikeouts in 12 1/3 innings – his best set of back-to-back starts since his outings on both halves of the All-Star Game break.

The other two quality starts on the road trip belonged to Joey Lucchesi and Ronald Bolaños in his Major League debut.

Lucchesi held the Giants to one run on eight hits and a walk with three strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings on Aug. 31.

Bolaños allowed two runs on five hits and two walks with four strikeouts in six innings Arizona on Tuesday. He became the eighth pitcher in the Major Leagues this season to throw six or more innings while allowing two or fewer runs in his debut. Logan Allen also did it for the Padres.    

NOTEBOOK:

-- Eighteen players have made their Major League debuts with the Padres this season. Ronald Bolaños was the seventh pitcher to make his Major League debut in a starting role as a Padre this season – joining Logan Allen, Pedro Avila, Nick Margevicius, Adrian Morejon, Paddack and Cal Quantrill. The Padres have also used 14 pitchers to start games while 25 pitchers have appeared out of the Padres bullpen, with six – Michel Baez, David Bednar, Javy Guerra, Andres Muñoz, Gerardo Reyes and Eric Yardley making their Major League debuts as Padres relievers.

-- RHP Michel Baez has now worked seven straight scoreless innings over six appearances. The 6-foot-8, 23-year-old Cuban has given up four hits and two walks with nine strikeouts during the run to lower his ERA from 4.63 to 2.89.

-- RHP Andres Muñoz – the 100-mph throwing, 20-year-old from Los Mochis, Mexico – has allowed one run on four hits and six walks over 9 2/3 innings in his last 10 appearances with 16 strikeouts. His ERA has dropped from 2.53 to 1.77.