Baz stifles Padres in strength vs. strength matchup

SAN DIEGO -- After Rays right fielder Kameron Misner turned a game-winning double play with a highlight reel sliding catch and throw to first to clinch a 1-0 victory over the Padres on Friday night at Petco Park, he gave a quick shoutout to his starting pitcher.

“Baz Day is always a good day,” Misner said with a smile. “He throws the ball well. It’s fun playing behind him, and he gives us a really good chance to win.”

It was a good day for Shane Baz. A dominant one, in fact. Six days after his worst outing of the season -- five runs on four hits and four walks in 3 1/3 innings against the Yankees -- Baz rebounded with seven scoreless frames.

“The last outing, just not filling up the strike zone. That sucks,” Baz said. “That’s the worst kind of outing you can have, just giving out free passes and stuff. So that was definitely a big focus going into today, and I was able to execute.”

Baz executed his pitches, and was efficient in doing so. Across seven innings, Baz struck out six while allowing four hits and one walk on 97 pitches. He didn’t allow a baserunner until the third inning, which came on a two-out single. And on the back end of his start, he didn’t allow a hit in either the sixth or seventh.

Baz looked like he was always a step ahead of the Padres’ bats on Friday. When he got into a jam, he never got rattled. Whether it was a timely strike out, a popup or inducing a double-play ball, Baz was always able to find a way to finish innings.

“Strike throwing and really good stuff,” manager Kevin Cash said about Baz’s start. “He was featuring the big fastball throughout the entire game. Really got all of his pitches. The curveball kind of stood out to me, but made some big pitches with the changeup. But that fastball/curveball combination was pretty lethal.

“And it is a really good lineup. For him to go through that, I was really impressed.”

Baz’s curveball was the star of the show on Friday, especially against a Padres lineup that has feasted on that pitch by almost every metric this season.

Entering Friday, the Padres ranked first in the Majors in hits (22), tied for second in batting average (.310), third in slugging percentage (.521), and third in OPS (.841) against the curve. In the other corner, Baz entered his outing with the fourth-most curveball strikeouts in the Majors (17), and a curveball run value -- the expected impact of the pitch on the overall run expectancy of a situation -- of +3 (tied for second).

Of the nine swings and misses Baz drew on Friday, five of them were on his curveball with a whiff rate of 25%. His average velocity on it was 84.3 mph, up almost a full tick from his usual of 83.6 mph. Couple that with an induced vertical break of -14, and it makes Baz’s outing all the more impressive, especially considering his opponents’ aforementioned success against it.

“I looked at the scouting report briefly, but it’s hard to deviate from your game plan,” Baz said. “They probably hit every pitch pretty good. They got a great lineup, and I was able to get it done.”

The Rays’ bats were in a similar funk as they faced Michael King, but they were able to break through in the top of the third. Taylor Walls scored from third on a sacrifice fly from Yandy Díaz.

It turned out to be enough.

“Good old fashioned pitchers’ duel -- we just came on the short side of it,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “[Baz] was making pitcher's pitches with plus stuff. Breaking ball really good. Locating the fastball; fastball had life. He was sticking balls right on the corners.

“Sometimes, you tip your hat.”