It was one of many great life lessons my father taught me as a young boy:

“Son, you missed a perfect opportunity to keep your mouth shut.”

Apparently San Diego Padres starting pitcher Joe Musgrove‘s father never taught him that as a young boy … or he just plain didn’t listen to his dad.

Allow me to digress.

Back on June 30, 2022, reporters asked the 6′-5″ / 230-pound hard throwing right-hander about the two home runs he had given up to 37-year-old Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner in his team’s 3-1 loss to the Dodgers. Musgrove “…missed a perfect opportunity to keep (his) mouth shut,” or at least come up with a better answer than:

“I don’t know what his numbers are against me. I don’t feel like, when he’s in the box, I don’t feel like he’s a huge threat. He’s a good hitter. He’s done a lot of damage to the teams that I’ve been on in the past. But of all the guys in that lineup, I didn’t feel like he was a huge threat. I just didn’t execute pitches very well. He put some good swings on it.”

Dude, he hit two home runs off of you!

Fast forward to Sunday, September 11, 2022.

In the top of the fifth inning of a then 2-0 Padres lead over the Dodgers at Petco Park, Musgrove gave up a solo home run to the same guy who he didn’t “…feel like (was) a huge threat.”

But wait … there’s more!

In the top of the seventh inning and with the Dodgers now up 6-2 over Musgrove’s team, the guy who he felt wasn’t a huge threat hit a mammoth 411-foot grand slam home run to very deep left field for his second home run of the game to make it 10-2 Dodgers.

Now granted, Turner’s granny was off of Padres right-hander Craig Stammen and not Musgrove, but perhaps Musgrove now has a slightly different opinion of non-threatening Justin Turner.

The Dodgers would go on to win the game by a score of 11-2 to take two of three from the Friars over the weekend series and, in doing so, are now one win away from clinching a postseason berth for a 10th consecutive season. But even if no other Dodger had driven in a run on Sunday afternoon, the score still would have been Justin Turner-5 – San Diego Padres-2.

How’s that crow taste, Joe?

Play Ball!

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