Padres Starter Warms Up to Former Teammate's Music, Then Beats Him

Maren Angus-Coombs | May 1, 2024

Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

As Yu Darvish warmed up before the San Diego Padres' 6-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday, a familiar song played throughout the stadium. Bakermat’s “Baiana” had been Nick Martinez's song choice for two seasons with the Padres.

Martinez had a good chuckle and appreciated the gesture but the friendly hospitality didn't last much longer. Darvish pitched five scoreless innings on 70 pitches in his first start since coming off the injured list.

“Obviously you go in there trying to get us out of that funk,” Darvish said, through interpreter Shingo Horie. “So, that’s the mentality. Let’s stop the losing streak right here, right today.”

The musical gesture was a no-brainer for Darvish. He was teammates with Martinez in Texas and again in San Diego.

“Everybody loves Nick in this clubhouse, and I’ve been a great friend of Nick for a long time,” Darvish said. “So it was more of kind of to show Nick respect to do that.”

Darvish only allowed three hits in his first win of the season. Manny Machado told reporters after the game that the Padres starter is easy to rally behind.

“The biggest thing is to have him healthy,” Machado said. “If he can stay healthy all year, you know, obviously getting him 15 days off to kind of like regroup and get right is huge. So having him tonight go up there, you couldn’t ask for a better man to get us back on track.”

Darvish's near flawless start was almost for not when the Padres bullpen gave up four runs down the stretch.

“That was fantastic by Darvish," Shildt said. "He was tremendous. We know what we’re likely going to get out of Yu, but of course, on a limited pitch count you’re not sure what the innings were going to look like and he hit pretty much his ceiling on the pitches and did it in a tremendous fashion. Obviously, we need that pitching performance. Zeros early in the game were huge.”