{"id":274853,"date":"2026-04-18T23:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T23:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/274853\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T23:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T23:56:10","slug":"san-diego-has-winning-streak-snapped-still-in-good-position-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/274853\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego has winning streak snapped, still in good position"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres saw their win streak finally come to an end against Los Angeles Angels\u2019 ace Jos\u00e9 Soriano<\/a> last night. It was an unfortunate end to the winning streak, but not entirely unexpected.<\/p>\n

With the best pitcher in baseball so far this season on the mound for Los Angeles<\/a> versus knuckleballer Matt Waldron, it wasn\u2019t much of a pitching duel from the get-go. That became increasingly clear as the Friars were shutout for the first time this season.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s easy to be worried, but it\u2019s not an indictment of the San Diego<\/a> offense. It\u2019s merely a showcase of the absolute ace that Soriano is becoming for the Halos. The real verdict will come if San Diego can\u2019t put up enough runs tonight.<\/p>\n

Taking the moundYusei Kikuchi<\/a> (LAA) v. Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez<\/a> (SD)<\/p>\n

The reason for that verdict is due to Kikuchi being a downright awful pitcher. If he was on just about any other team, he\u2019d be sent to the minors. But he\u2019s on the Angels, and they need the pitching.<\/p>\n

What Kikuchi lacks in stuff he makes up for in mostly \u2013 serviceable innings. He pitched a career-high 33 starts with Los Angeles last year and was their \u201cace\u201d (though that\u2019s not a word I would use to describe him).<\/p>\n

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If the Friars can\u2019t get to Kikuchi, it\u2019s a bad omen of a serious departure from the recent slugfest that has been San Diego. Their only problem will be scoring enough to make up for M\u00e1rquez.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, M\u00e1rquez hasn\u2019t been as bad as some worried. But he also hasn\u2019t been good enough to justify a spot in the rotation if not for injuries on the Padres\u2019 roster.<\/p>\n

M\u00e1rquez seemed to turn around his early slump with a scoreless five innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a>. But he shortly followed that up with a rough five innings against the Colorado Rockies<\/a> in which he gave up four runs. He earned his first win with San Diego in that outing because their offense outpaced Colorado\u2019s, but it\u2019s still disheartening.<\/p>\n

That being said, if M\u00e1rquez can turn it around against anybody, it\u2019s the Angels. Despite the fact that they\u2019re top 10 in MLB in on-base (.338) and slugging percentage (.414), they\u2019re 20th in batting average (.231). And the only reason that they\u2019re high in OBP is because they\u2019ve been issued an MLB-leading 98 walks.<\/p>\n

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M\u00e1rquez has limited his free passes well this year, giving up only five across four starts. So long as he can limit hard contact, he should have a decent outing.<\/p>\n

Batter up!<\/p>\n

Leadoff man Ram\u00f3n Laureano<\/a> was out of the lineup yesterday as part of manager Craig Stammen<\/a>\u2019s constant rest philosophy. It\u2019s boded well so far for San Diego, and Laureano\u2019s presence in the lineup likely wouldn\u2019t have changed much in the Friars\u2019 8-0 loss.<\/p>\n

That being said, Laureano will be back in the top spot tonight. Not only is he the obvious option, he has a career batting average of .308 against Kikuchi (26 at-bats). In fact, the Padres have a combined .337 average against the left-hander.<\/p>\n

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That means the lineup will likely be business as usual. Except for a few things: Jackson Merrill<\/a> has played a lot lately, and Miguel Andujar<\/a> has been raking (and does so especially against lefties). The latter will probably slot into the lineup, while the former sits the bench for a rest day:<\/p>\n

Cronenworth took the leadoff spot in last night\u2019s game and has continued to disappoint. He lowered his batting average to an unfortunate .138 mark.<\/p>\n

Campusano will likely continue his stretch as the lone backstop with Freddy Fermin<\/a> still being dealt with cautiously after his concussion scare.<\/p>\n

Relief corps<\/p>\n

With Waldron only managing to pitch 3 2\/3 innings, the \u2018pen was relied on heavily. David Morgan gave up his first runs of the year on a two-run shot. Wandy Peralta<\/a>, Bradgley Rodriguez and Kyle Hart<\/a> pitched a clean 3 2\/3 to finish out the game.<\/p>\n

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After some trouble lately, Rodriguez looked especially sharp, striking out all three batters faced. He lowered his ERA to 0.84 to start the year and has been on a tear lately. If not for a guy named Mason Miller<\/a>, he might be viewed as the best reliever in this group.<\/p>\n

Speaking of, the dominant closer will hopefully emerge from the bullpen for the bottom of the ninth tomorrow. He\u2019ll be available after getting plenty of rest yesterday. Also available out of the \u2018pen are Jason Adam<\/a>, Ron Marinaccio<\/a> and Adrian Morejon.<\/p>\n

All four represent high-leverage options for Stammen to pick from, though he\u2019ll likely tab Marinaccio if the Padres have a sizable lead when M\u00e1rquez exits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Padres saw their win streak finally come to an end against Los Angeles Angels\u2019 ace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[163,93265,7,3673,27847,3494,78582,77535,84742,51388,47263,68435,35175,47,2866,77534,3493,7867,89235,47882,25151,7868,47260,74,76,75,2611,26077,32031,60758,23643],"class_list":{"0":"post-274853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-bryce-johnson","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-colorado-rockies","12":"tag-craig-stammen","13":"tag-fernando-tatis-jr","14":"tag-freddy-fermin","15":"tag-gavin-sheets","16":"tag-german-marquez","17":"tag-jackson-merrill","18":"tag-jason-adam","19":"tag-jose-soriano","20":"tag-kyle-hart","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-los-angeles-angels","23":"tag-luis-campusano","24":"tag-manny-machado","25":"tag-mason-miller","26":"tag-matt-waldron","27":"tag-miguel-andujar","28":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","29":"tag-ramon-laureano","30":"tag-ron-marinaccio","31":"tag-san-diego","32":"tag-san-diego-headlines","33":"tag-san-diego-news","34":"tag-san-diego-padres","35":"tag-wandy-peralta","36":"tag-winning-streak","37":"tag-xander-bogaerts","38":"tag-yusei-kikuchi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274853","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=274853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}