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Padres' Peavy dominates Astros

Apr 1, 2008 - 6:13 AM By Tim Powers PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

SAN DIEGO (Ticker) -- Jake Peavy picked up right where he left off last season.

Peavy threw seven superb innings and drove in a pair of runs to lead the San Diego Padres past the Houston Astros, 4-0, in the season opener on Monday night.

The unanimous choice for the National League Cy Young award a season go, Peavy (1-0) yielded just three hits while shutting out the Houston offense. Opposing his close friend, Astros ace Roy Oswalt, the 26-year-old Peavy struck out four and walked three batters.

"Me and Roy have got a great friendship on and off the field, and I'm sure we're going to let this go," Peavy said. "I had pretty good stuff tonight, but I've got to get better. I was able to work on some things and think I threw some pretty good changeups tonight. I was excited about that, but I've got a long way to go to get to where I want to be."

Heath Bell tossed a scoreless eighth in front of Cla Meredith, who worked around a single in the ninth to finish off the shutout.

"We tried to make some good at-bats, but (Peavy) is good," Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada said. "We give credit to him, because he just works everybody and doesn't lose his concentration."

On top of the solid pitching effort, Peavy used his bat to help his own cause in the second inning, driving a sacrifice fly to the warning track in left field before adding a run-scoring single in the fourth to build a 2-0 advantage.

Padres manager Bud Black later revealed that Peavy had missed a bunt sign in the fourth-inning at-bat.

"I didn't know the bunt sign was on until they took it off," Peavy said. "Hindsight being 20-20, I'm glad I didn't bunt. I'm going to go ahead and throw that out there."

Adrian Gonzalez padded the lead to 3-0 in the fifth with a single to plate Tadahito Iguchi, who doubled twice and went 3-for-5 in his debut with the Padres.

Newcomer Tony Clark's pinch-hit single against Brian Moehler in the seventh pushed the score to 4-0.

"I thought we had good at-bats throughout the lineup, I really did," Black said. "We had guys on base and they wiggled out of some jams, but as a group we had some really nice at-bats. We swung the bats well."

Oswalt (0-1) allowed three runs on 11 hits over 5 1/3 innings. The 30-year-old righthander struck out six and walked one.

"I didn't really have a whole lot," Oswalt said. "I didn't have any breaking pitches, so I had to throw my fastball a lot. I was terrible from the get-go. I knew from the first inning that my curveball was popping out of my hand."

Michael Bourn singled and stole two bases in his first game with the Astros, who did not advance a runner as far as third base.

"That won't happen too often with us where we only get three hits, four hits," Astros manager Cecil Cooper said. "It's the first day and we were facing a pretty good pitcher, so that's what I chalk it up to."