This was a tough one for the Friar Faithful to take in.<\/p>\n
The San Diego Padres didn\u2019t do a whole lot to help their case as they lost their second consecutive game to the St. Louis Cardinals. It\u2019s been a difficult stretch that has been marked by a poor Friars\u2019 offense.<\/p>\n
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But the offense wasn\u2019t the Padres biggest problem last night. Their defense ended up losing the game, being the main reason that six runs came across the board in the fifth inning, with right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. making his first error since May of last year. That call was controversial, this one was not.<\/p>\n
With the bases loaded, JJ Wetherholt hit a single into right field. It would have been only one run with the play at the plate to get the lead runner, but the ball trickled under Tatis glove as he rushed to make the play and ended up at the wall. It went from a single to a little league grand slam.<\/p>\n
But the Cards wouldn\u2019t even need that many, with the Padres failing to score against the St. Louis<\/a> pitching staff, despite having opportunities to do so. They\u2019ll need to put some runs together tonight in order to right the ship in what has been a difficult stretch of baseball for San Diego.<\/p>\n Taking the moundDustin May<\/a> (STL) v. Randy V\u00e1squez (SD)<\/p>\n May has been middling but just good enough for the Cards, pitching to a 5.15 ERA over 36 2\/3 innings. But the best thing for the righty is the simple fact that he\u2019s healthy. In the past, that\u2019s been a major struggle.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n 2025 was May\u2019s first season pitching more than 60 innings with 132 1\/3 innings. It was a mediocre year with May posting a 4.96 ERA but his health earned him a modest contract in St. Louis.<\/p>\n The Padres faced May plenty of times while he was a Los Angeles Dodger<\/a>, and they played well against him then. There\u2019s nothing to suggest that that wouldn\u2019t remain the case this time around. The Friars need to scratch some runs across after failing to score very much in this series.<\/p>\n V\u00e1squez has looked incredible for San Diego so far this season, but the last two starts have been shaky. In 10 2\/3 innings, the righty has given up eight runs. That\u2019s raised his ERA from 1.88 (as of April 21) to a 3.20 mark heading into tonight\u2019s matchup.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say he\u2019s been bad, he hasn\u2019t. But V\u00e1squez has struggled with command, issuing five walks in those recent starts. If he can regain his command tonight, the Friars should have no trouble.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Batter up!<\/p>\n Of the Padres\u2019 lineup, Manny Machado<\/a> and Tatis have the most experience against May (53 combined at-bats). They own a combined .283 batting average with three homers against the right-hander. If those two bats can come alive, that would be a major improvement for the Friars.<\/p>\n After having two knocks in his debut start, Song\u2019s bat has gone cold, it would be great for it to return against the lower-leverage starting May. Andujar has been in a similar state, cooling off after his eight-game hitting streak came to an end.<\/p>\n Merrill batting leadoff has been an interesting development in the lineup. It seemed to work initially, but hasn\u2019t in the last two games. Manager Craig Stammen<\/a> has seemed to let things linger before doing away with something so it seems likely that the center fielder continues to bat leadoff.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Relief corps<\/p>\n Yuki Matsui made his 2026 debut last night after spending the year rehabbing from a groin injury. He was mostly alright, pitching a solid 1 2\/3 innings before being asked to return for the seventh inning. After striking out Wetherholt, he allowed the next three batters to reach before getting out of the jam.<\/p>\n With the game well out of hand, the Friars then went to Wandy Peralta<\/a> and Ron Marinaccio<\/a> to close out the eighth and ninth innings, respectively. That will leave the \u2018pen fresh for tonight\u2019s game.<\/p>\n Jason Adam<\/a>, Jeremiah Estrada<\/a>, Mason Miller<\/a>, Adrian Morejon and Bradgley Rodriguez will all be available to pitch in relief after V\u00e1squez\u2019s outing concludes. Those five are all high-leverage options for Stammen to go to, and will each be trusted to turn to in a close game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was a tough one for the Friar Faithful to take in. The San Diego Padres didn\u2019t do…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,27847,129538,108436,92622,78582,129536,77535,51388,47263,47264,129535,129537,3493,7867,7868,89232,47260,74,76,75,2611,19174,2846,96848,26077,60758,47259],"class_list":["post-308256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-craig-stammen","tag-dustin-may","tag-fernando-tatis","tag-fifth-inning","tag-freddy-fermin","tag-friar","tag-gavin-sheets","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-jason-adam","tag-jeremiah-estrada","tag-jj-wetherholt","tag-los-angeles-dodger","tag-manny-machado","tag-mason-miller","tag-ramon-laureano","tag-randy-vasquez","tag-ron-marinaccio","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-st-louis","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-ty-france","tag-wandy-peralta","tag-xander-bogaerts","tag-yuki-matsui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308256","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=308256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}