It was just about the most characteristic game the San Diego Padres could have. Winning 2-0 on the laurels of their dominant pitching, the Friars won their first home series in quite some time. It\u2019s certainly been nice to watch San Diego take out their frustrations from the recent rivalry series on someone.<\/p>\n
Starter Lucas Giolito<\/a> was solid, working around some shaky command to get through five scoreless innings. He had some help. Ty France<\/a> made three double plays (one of which may have been overturned had the Athletics not lost their challenge in the first inning).<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Padres managed to scratch two runs across against J.T. Ginn<\/a>. The lineup went 0-for-5 with RISP but scored on a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch and an RBI ground out. However they did it, it\u2019s a results-based business and the Friars are now 11 games over .500. It feels good to be a Padres fan.<\/p>\n Taking the moundLuis Medina<\/a> (ATH) v. Michael King<\/a> (SD)<\/p>\n Media has looked good so far for the A\u2019s. He\u2019s only been used in relief so it\u2019s unclear if the Athletics will use him as an opener or if it will be a bullpen game. It remains to be seen how the club will pitch the series finale.<\/p>\n Whatever the case, Medina has looked great in what has been a breakout 2026. Through 14 games he owns a 2.41 ERA, almost three runs lower than his career 5.03 ERA. He hasn\u2019t limited runners well, with a 1.18 WHIP, so San Diego will need to take advantage.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n King has been the Friars\u2019s ace, there\u2019s just no other way to say it. His 2.31 ERA and 1.06 WHIP don\u2019t even tell the full story of how good he\u2019s been. And that\u2019s without mentioning that \u2014 until his last start \u2014 he didn\u2019t even look fully like himself.<\/p>\n Then he reminded everyone of who he was in his previous start against the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>, pitching seven scoreless innings and outdueling 2025 World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> for the win. If he can keep that elite command intact, King could make a run at the National League Cy Young.<\/p>\n Batter up!<\/p>\n Most of the Padres have yet to face Medina. He\u2019s only spent three years in the league, and it\u2019s been in a different division so it\u2019s not all that surprising. That means it\u2019ll probably be a standard lineup.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Bogaerts got a rest day on Saturday, with Song starting at shortstop. He\u2019ll be back in today\u2019s lineup, though Song could still play at second to give Tatis his first outfield start in a while.<\/p>\n Merrill looked good in his first game back from tweaking his back. He went 1-for-3 with a walk in Saturday\u2019s game. If he can keep that momentum going it would be a major boost for San Diego.<\/p>\n The same is true of Dur\u00e1n. After getting his first MLB hit (it was a homer) in Seattle<\/a> against the Mariners<\/a>, he\u2019s looked fantastic. That continued to be the case in the series opener against the Athletics, with Dur\u00e1n going 1-for-1 with two walks.<\/p>\n Relief corps<\/p>\n After using most of their high-leverage relievers in Game 1 on Friday, the Friars exhausted them thoroughly in Saturday\u2019s win. Manager Craig Stammen<\/a> likely decided to do that due to King starting Sunday\u2019s finale. The Padres will rest on the laurels of their ace against the A\u2019s as opposed to their high-leverage bullpen options.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Jason Adam<\/a>, Jeremiah Estrada<\/a> and Adrian Morejon each covered two innings between the two games while Mason Miller<\/a> closed out the save last night. Miller could still be available in a save situation for the finale.<\/p>\n However, the likelier available pitchers are Ron Marinaccio<\/a>, Yuki Matsui<\/a>, Wandy Peralta<\/a> and Bradgley Rodriguez. Only Rodriguez has pitched so far in this seres (0.2 IP on Friday).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was just about the most characteristic game the San Diego Padres could have. Winning 2-0 on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[30942,7,27847,108436,69808,77535,99757,51388,47263,47264,53,48888,133761,3493,32870,7867,29290,47882,7868,57247,47260,74,76,75,2611,7853,96848,26077,60758,429,47259],"class_list":["post-330679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-athletics","tag-california","tag-craig-stammen","tag-fernando-tatis","tag-friars","tag-gavin-sheets","tag-j-t-ginn","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-jason-adam","tag-jeremiah-estrada","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-lucas-giolito","tag-luis-medina","tag-manny-machado","tag-mariners","tag-mason-miller","tag-michael-king","tag-miguel-andujar","tag-ramon-laureano","tag-rivalry-series","tag-ron-marinaccio","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-seattle","tag-ty-france","tag-wandy-peralta","tag-xander-bogaerts","tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto","tag-yuki-matsui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330679","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=330679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}