The cars began showing up at 5 a.m., crowding the small lot that Caff\u00e9 Adesso shares with a Shell station off Tavern Road and Interstate 8 in Alpine.<\/p>\n
The bleary-eyed commuters couldn\u2019t help but notice that October had arrived early at the Musgrove family\u2019s coffee shop.<\/p>\n
Orange and brown leaves and fall-themed wreaths adorned the exterior walls of the cozy cafe. Pumpkin pie lattes, candy corn lattes, witch\u2019s (cold) brews and phantom frappes were on the menu. The drive-thru window\u2019s tip jar was jet black with white ghosts painted on the side.<\/p>\n
Another sure sign of fall: Joe Musgrove is pitching in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
One of the Padres\u2019 all-time postseason heroes returned to the roster Tuesday after nearly two years away, pitching a scoreless ninth inning<\/a> in the Padres\u2019 8-0 Wild Card Series win over the Chicago Cubs<\/a>.<\/p>\n That many fans will remember it as The Joe Musgrove Game \u2014 on a night when Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado hit first-inning homers, Michael King threw 6 \u2153 no-hit innings and Tatis scored from first base on a steal attempt \u2014 speaks to the bond between the right-hander and Padres fans.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s his dedication, his love of the city,\u201d said longtime Padres fan Larry Carpa, an Escondido resident who wore a giveaway Musgrove basketball jersey to Wednesday\u2019s Game 2. \u201cI think he enjoys being a star in his hometown. He not only plays for himself, but he plays for the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n Larry Pierce, who sat next to Carpa in Section 202, said Musgrove being from San Diego \u201cmakes it a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Musgrove was born in El Cajon and attended Grossmont High School, where a mural of the right-hander now adorns a wall on campus.<\/p>\n Musgrove got an interlocking \u201cSD\u201d tattooed on his arm at age 18, even when his baseball career pointed toward a career with one of baseball\u2019s other 29 teams. He lived in various San Diego neighborhoods during his first big-league offseasons, picking different neighborhoods to explore.<\/p>\n When the Padres acquired Musgrove from the Pittsburgh Pirates in a January 2021 trade, the hometown boy had no reason to leave.<\/p>\n And San Diegans had a hometown hero to call their own.<\/p>\n Of course, Musgrove isn\u2019t just your favorite Padres fan\u2019s favorite Padre. He might be your favorite Padre\u2019s favorite teammate, too.<\/p>\n Jason Adam called Musgrove\u2019s debut \u201cmaybe my favorite moment of the year so far.\u201d<\/p>\n King admitted to getting \u201cemotional\u201d as Musgrove closed the door.<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t the only one wowed by the scene.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, nuts,\u201d Musgrove\u2019s sister, Terra, said late Tuesday. \u201cI think (the reception) was exactly what he needed to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, Musgrove is no mascot, and the playoffs are no place for feel-good stories that lack substance.<\/p>\n Performance is everything. And many in the Padres organization have a real belief that Musgrove can be a force out of the bullpen this fall. He touched 97 mph on Tuesday, working around a bases-loaded, one-out jam to preserve the shutout win.<\/p>\n For years, he was the Padres pitcher you wanted on the mound in the playoffs.<\/p>\n Musgrove eliminated the New York Mets from the wild-card round in 2022, a co-ace on the \u201cDragon Slayers\u201d Padres team that advanced to the National League Championship Series. His last outing before Tuesday took place during the 2024 Wild Card Series, where he pitched 3 \u2154 innings, allowing one run, before leaving with an elbow injury that required reconstructive surgery.<\/p>\n Musgrove has a 2.70 ERA in five playoff appearances for the Padres, striking out 24 and walking seven. The ERA is over one run-per-game lower than his career mark of 3.90 ERA.<\/p>\n Yes, the Padres have employed plenty of clutch playoff pitchers, from Eric Show to Kevin Brown to Yu Darvish.<\/p>\n But no one connects with San Diego quite like \u201cNo-No Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSan Diego looks at everybody else (who) is coming in (knowing) they\u2019re only going to be here for a while,\u201d said Pierce, wearing a sand-colored Musgrove jersey of his own. \u201d \u2026 Here\u2019s a hometown boy. He\u2019s got a no-hitter. He\u2019s a good guy.\u201d<\/p>\n Annie Heilbrunn contributed to this story.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cars began showing up at 5 a.m., crowding the small lot that Caff\u00e9 Adesso shares with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127,1696],"class_list":["post-481130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}