The last few days have made it feel good to be a San Diego Padres fan again.<\/p>\n
The Friar Faithful have been rewarded after a floundering first week with a three-game win streak. After winning their first series of the year against the Boston Red Sox, they won their first game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-0.<\/p>\n
And although the offense has been producing much more consistently, by far, the greatest part of yesterday\u2019s game was starter Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez pitching five shutout innings against a Pittsburgh lineup that has been hot.<\/p>\n
After a difficult debut at Petco Park last week, M\u00e1rquez gave the Friars exactly what they needed: some breathing room for the bullpen.<\/p>\n
With Walker Buehler only going 2 2\/3 innings in Sunday\u2019s game, the relievers were leaned on heavily. There was a worry going into yesterday\u2019s game that M\u00e1rquez wouldn\u2019t last long enough to give the relievers adequate rest.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, that wasn\u2019t the case, and San Diego was able to ride the pitching staff\u2019s shutout to a Padres\u2019 victory.<\/p>\n
Paul Skenes (PIT) v. Nick Pivetta (SD)<\/p>\n
Skenes had a rough go of it on Opening Day, surrendering five runs in only 2\/3 innings pitched. In large part, that was due to Oneil Cruz\u2019s terrible defense in center field. It was no surprise when he bounced back with five innings of one-run ball against the Cincinnati Reds in his last start.<\/p>\n
San Diego will have a tough time solving him, especially since they\u2019ve yet to face him since his 2024 debut.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s one of the most dominant pitchers in the game, but the Padres have had success against right-handers so they could get to him just enough to get into the \u2018pen.<\/p>\n
Pivetta had a similar start to the year with a difficult Opening Day followed by a bounceback start.<\/p>\n
In his last start against the San Francisco Giants, he pitched five innings with eight strikeouts, only allowing one hit.<\/p>\n
If he can stymie this Pirates lineup the same way M\u00e1rquez did last night, the Padres won\u2019t need to do too much against Skenes.<\/p>\n
With Bubba Chandler being a remarkably similar pitcher to Skenes (they even look somewhat like each other), a similar lineup as yesterday\u2019s will probably remain the game plan:<\/p>\n
Ram\u00f3n Laureano, LFFernando Tatis Jr., RFJackson Merrill, CFManny Machado, 3BXander Bogaerts, SSGavin Sheets, 1BNick Castellanos, DHJake Cronenworth, 2BLuis Campusano, C<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible Miguel Andujar gets the tab at DH over Castellanos. But Castellanos went 2-for-4 with an RBI last night. Maybe this time manager Craig Stammen finally keeps the hot bats in the lineup.<\/p>\n
Campusano will likely get the start, as him and Freddy Fermin seem to be mostly swapping back and forth in the backstop role.<\/p>\n
San Diego has had more success against right-handers, so there\u2019s hope they produce against Skenes today. If they do, it would go a long way to continuing to calm the worries about this offense from the beginning of the season.<\/p>\n
With M\u00e1rquez covering five scoreless innings yesterday, the Padres only needed to turn to two pitchers (Ron Marinaccio and David Morgan), neither of whom were used in Sunday\u2019s 8-6 win over Boston.<\/p>\n
Because of that, the bullpen will be well-rested for the pitcher\u2019s duel between Skenes and Pivetta today. Should Pivetta stumble, the Padres will have plenty of high-leverage options to turn to.<\/p>\n
Of those choices, the one who has struggled the most as of late is Wandy Peralta. Called upon to get one out in Friday\u2019s loss, he failed to do so and gave up two runs (one earned). It was a lead that Boston wouldn\u2019t relinquish. In Sunday\u2019s win Peralta allowed the Sox to bring the tying run home before the Friars made up for it with one run apiece in the eighth and ninth innings.<\/p>\n
If the Padres manage to produce against Skenes, and have a lead in the ninth, Mason Miller will come in to close. He would have yesterday if not for having pitched the last two games in Boston. With a five-run lead, San Diego made the choice to give him rest.<\/p>\n
Behind those two remains Kyle Hart (though he pitched 2 1\/3 innings on Sunday), Jeremiah Estrada, Bradgley Rodriguez and Adrian Morejon. Some combination of those four will likely be utilized against Pittsburgh today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last few days have made it feel good to be a San Diego Padres fan again. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,95057,108390,10793],"class_list":{"0":"post-256197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-san-diego","9":"tag-san-diego-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego-news","11":"tag-san-diego-padres-analysis","12":"tag-san-diego-padres-game-information","13":"tag-san-diego-padres-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256197","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=256197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}