Padres Look To Hit Reset Button With Rockies In Town: Pads vs. Rocks 6/3
By Friar Wire
By Bob Scanlan
There’s no trying to explain the implosion that took place at Petco last night as the Padres allowed a 10-run lead entering the 6th inning to slip through their fingers and devolve into a 16–13 loss to the Mariners. Given that the the team is in the midst of a run of losing 13 of their last 17 games, currently owns the worst record in the N.L. West, and was just called out publicly two days ago by team chairman Ron Fowler as “miserable failures,” last night’s disaster was just par for the Padres rough course right now. Suffice it to say that it’s been a tough time for Andy Green and his Friars of late.
In true baseball irony, however, there is one thing that is going well for the team, which is the offense — whose season-long struggles have been the primary cause for the Friars trailing the division-leading Giants by 12.5 games. They’ve scored 49 runs over the last 7 games, but the team has a 2–5 record to show for it. The pitching has been the problem now, posting an inflated 9.76 ERA over that stretch….ouch.
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The Padres will bid a not so fond farewell to interleague play for now, as the also-struggling Rockies come into town for some good old fashioned inter-division competition. To get the taste of last night out of their mouths and move on to better times tonight, the Friars will look for….
- Pomeranz to rebound — Drew Pomeranz has been the Padres’ most reliable starter all season
- long. Until his last outing that is, when he had his first clunker, allowing 6 ER in 5 innings. Nothing to worry about, hopefully; it happens. It’s not a question of if you are going to have a bad game, but how you rebound from it after it occurs. He had a real tough time commanding anything in the desert air and threw a first pitch ball to 9 of the first 14 batters he faced, 6 of whom scored. He did pull himself back together to get through the 5th inning and not decimate the bullpen. This will be his first opportunity to show his rebounding skills as a Padre, and he gets to do it against his old club, who he made his successful Friar debut against. Although struggling themselves, having lost 11 of their last 15 games, the Rocks are still dangerous at the dish against left handers, with the second most long balls against lefty hurlers (22) in MLB. There’s not much history between Pomeranz and the Rocks, so it’s back to basics of getting ahead. Carlos Gonzalez has been one of Colorado’s hottest hitters with 6 HRs and 11 RBIs in his last 8 games, so that will be an important matchup to watch.
- A repeat against Rusin — Rockies starter Chris Rusin has been working back and forth this
- season between the bullpen and the rotation, but he’s 0–3 with a 6.85 ERA as a starter. The Padres last saw him early in the season in one of his bullpen outings and tagged 3 runs on him in 1 1/3 innings of work. First pitch strikes have not been that important to his success, but the 1–1 pitch is where the tide turns for him, with batters reaching base 50% of the time when he falls behind 2–1. So take early to see him unless he offers a cookie. He gets exposed rather quickly, as well, with batters hitting .390 and .414 against him their second and third times at the plate against him, respectively.
- Batters to keep on slugging — As mentioned above, the Padres have really started to swing the
- bats much better recently and score some runs. In fact, no N.L. team has scored more runs than the Padres over the last 7 games. Leading the way by setting the table has been Jon Jay, who’s had 9 hits and 4 runs scored in the last two games alone! Yangervis Solarte has also been swinging it well, hitting safely in 8 of his last 9 games, same as Alexi Ramirez, who also has 3 HRs and 8 RBIs over that stretch. Wil Myers, who’s collected 8 hits, a HR, and 3 doubles over the last four games, has also contributed 7 RBIs over the past week. Point is, there have been plenty of guys chiming in, and they will need to keep adding on runs to help cover for the pitching staff that carried the club early but has gone through a tough stretch lately.
