MILWAUKEE \u2014 Outside the lines, Michael King is as affable as it gets. The pitcher who steps on the mound on game day is anything but.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichael\u2019s pretty locked in \u2014 he\u2019s focused and intense,\u201d Padres manager Craig Stammen said. \u201cI tell him that the East Coast in him comes out on those days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Padres will need East Coast King on Sunday.<\/p>\n
His Game 2 start against the Milwaukee Brewers at hostile American Family Field will be just the second road appearance of his postseason career. The 31-year-old right-hander relishes playing the villain on the road as much as he loves playing the hero in his starts at a sold-out Petco Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as a competitor, it\u2019s just as exciting to hear your home fans cheer as it is to hear it silent in an opposing park,\u201d King said. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously the goal: to get momentum quick, play Padre baseball and stay on the attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
King has certainly done his part on the mound.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s gem in Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series lowered his postseason ERA to 2.05, which includes striking out three in a scoreless frame last year at Wrigley Field in his only appearance on the road in a playoff game.<\/p>\n
King has earned the win in all three of his postseason starts, although his wild-card starts were borderline historic compared to the five innings of five-run ball that he threw against the Dodgers in Game 3 of the 2024 NLDS.<\/p>\n
King struck out 12 jet-lagged, worn-out Braves over seven shutout innings without a walk to start the 2024 postseason.<\/p>\n
What he did on Tuesday rivaled that, given who he beat: Baseball\u2019s best offense in the Cubs.<\/p>\n
Not only did King strike out eight while spinning another seven shutout innings, he also allowed just one hit while etching another spot in the Padres\u2019 record books.<\/p>\n
King owns two of the Padres\u2019 five-ever postseason games in which a starter turned in at least seven shutout innings. Kevin Brown threw two such gems en route to the 1998 World Series and Joe Musgrove threw the other to eliminate the Mets in New York in Game 3 of the NL Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n
Only King and Musgrove completed such games while allowing just one hit, and King didn\u2019t allow his hit until one out in the seventh inning.<\/p>\n
An infield single by Nico Hoerner broke it up, but not before third baseman Manny Machado tracked it down to attempt what would have been a Hall-of-Fame throw.<\/p>\n
Machado just couldn\u2019t get a handle on the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pissed,\u201d Machado said that night. \u201cI knew what was on the line, so I wanted to make the play. \u2026 I know how important it is and obviously how well he was throwing the ball. Just trying to hopefully make it happen. I know it was going to be tough obviously with that lineup and that team over there, but it was in motion. So just trying to make that play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stammen was rooting for Machado to make the play, too, even if it was going to complicate his calculus as he weighed King\u2019s rising pitch count (97) against his chances to become the first pitcher to complete a no-hitter in a postseason game since Roy Halladay for the Phillies in October 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about it at that point,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cHis pitch count was starting to creep a little bit, and we\u2019re focused on winning the game. The playoffs are a little bit different. You\u2019ve got to try to win the game. But also there\u2019s a piece of history that\u2019s in there, too. If he would have kept his pitch count down, you know, probably the pitcher in me would have been, like, \u2018We\u2019re going to leave him out there until he gives a hit up.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we\u2019ll never know.\u201d<\/p>\n
King was certainly thinking about it.<\/p>\n
Of course, he always knows exactly where he\u2019s at in a game.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s just wired that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it in the bullpen before the game,\u201d King said. \u201cI think that if a pitcher tells you he doesn\u2019t know that he\u2019s got a no-hitter, perfect game or one of those things going on, then they\u2019re lying to you. The goal every time out is to throw a perfect game. So if I give up a leadoff single, well there goes the perfect game.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I realized I hadn\u2019t given up one of those for a while, so I was very aware of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE \u2014 Outside the lines, Michael King is as affable as it gets. The pitcher who steps on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,853,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,185],"class_list":["post-821026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego-padres","tag-baseball","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-padres","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sandiego","tag-sandiegopadres","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117380209925668864","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}