The Arizona Diamondbacks are under .500 for a good reason: Their starting pitching hasn’t performed at the standard they thought it would.
You’d be hard-pressed to tell the San Diego Padres differently, based on the first three games of the teams’ four-game series that will wrap up Thursday night in San Diego.
Arizona’s Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Brandon Pfaadt have logged quality starts in the series. Gallen and Pfaadt won, and Kelly lost 1-0 only because San Diego outfielders Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. robbed home runs that would have been good for three runs on Tuesday.
But Arizona hit four homers on Wednesday night and Pfaadt, 26, pitched a career-high eight innings in an 8-2 victory that gives Arizona a chance at a series win on Thursday.
The Diamondbacks enter the finale at 46-47, 4 1/2 games behind the San Francisco Giants for the National League’s final wild-card spot. Arizona general manager Mike Hazen said he wants to add at the trading deadline in three weeks but isn’t ruling out playing the seller’s role if the team can’t make up some ground.
“I can go out there and buy at the deadline, but if we’re not playing our best baseball in the second half, it’s not really gonna matter,” Hazen said Wednesday to Arizona Sports. “We can only talk about that for so long. We’re getting close to the trade deadline (July 31).”
Corbin Burnes’ season-ending elbow injury and three starters making it to mid-July with an ERA over 5.00 weren’t in the Diamondbacks’ plans. One of those pitchers, left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez (3-5, 5.78 ERA), will try on Thursday to rebound from a 9-3 loss last Friday to Kansas City.
Rodriguez was rocked for 12 hits and nine runs (eight earned) over 4 1/3 innings, with no walks and seven strikeouts. But he hasn’t allowed a run in two career starts and 11 2/3 innings against San Diego, going 1-0 and striking out nine.
And this version of the Padres hasn’t distinguished itself offensively since the team started 15-4. In fact, San Diego has scored more than four runs in a game just three times in the last 16 games.
That means the Padres will need another good performance from right-hander Randy Vasquez (3-4, 3.79 ERA) to earn a series split. Vasquez last worked on Friday, going six innings and allowing only two runs in the team’s 3-2, 10-inning win over Texas. He walked three and struck out one but wasn’t involved in the deecision..
Vasquez has no record in four career outings against Arizona but has a solid 2.95 ERA, walking only four batters in 21 1/3 innings. That’s noteworthy because he’s struggled at times this year to find the plate, walking 42 batters in 90 1/3 innings.
San Diego hasn’t won consecutive games since June 24-25 against Washington but has lost consecutive games just once in that span. The Padres, at 49-43, are a game behind San Francisco for the final NL wild-card position.
Padres manager Mike Shildt continues to spread the same message daily to his players as they try to find the form that propelled them to a fast start.
“The more you take care of business on a daily basis,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune, “the more you get to where you go.”