Padres Series Preview: Marlins Head West to Take on Padres
After a weekend series at Coors Field, the San Diego Padres return home to Petco Park. The Padres return home for a seven game home stand. The home stand will kick off with a three game series against the Miami Marlins.
The Padres are coming off a tough but fair series at Coors Field. The Marlins are coming off quite a tough stretch themselves. The Fish have lost their last two series. To add to it the series have come against some weak opponents in the Diamondbacks and the Twins.
The Marlins overall have had a decent season so far with a record of 32-31. They also have several players who can turn out to be a menace to the Padres pitching staff. This series should be an interesting and competitive series overall. Many Padres players like Wil Myers have done well at home. The Padres should be able to pull off a nice fight against the Marlins. This will definitely be a series you should tune into.
Pitching Matchups
Wei-Yin Chen vs Colin Rea 7:10 p.m.
Tom Koehler vs Drew Pomeranz 7:10 p.m.
Justin Nicolino vs Luis Perdomo 12:40 p.m.
All three pitchers going for the Marlins have struggled in this season. Chen is sitting on a 4.56 ERA, Koehler on a 4.36 and Nicolino on a 4.76. The Padres have fortunately avoided seeing the Marlins best pitcher, Jose Fernandez. Joefer has a record of 9-3 with a 2.57 ERA. To add to it he is second in strikeouts in the whole MLB with 118. All pitching matchups really favor the Friars in this series.
Colin Rea is coming off a nice start against the Braves. Rea would throw seven innings and only allow three runs. To add to it Rea would only throw 90 pitches. Rea definitely looked sharp in his last start. I definitely believe he is more than capable of winning Monday nights game for the Pads. Our best pitcher, Drew Pomeranz will then go in game two of the series. Pomeranz didn’t really look the best in his last start. Pomeranz would only throw five innings and allow three runs against the Braves. Now the only reason I would consider that a bad start was because it came against the Braves. If Pomeranz can go five or six innings and only allow three runs against the Marlins, that should be enough to ensure victory.
Now we get into the interesting third game of the series. Luis Perdomo will get the nod to start after Andrew Cashner‘s injury. Perdomo looked quite good in his last outing. Perdomo would take over after Cashner would just throw a third of an inning. Perdomo would look solid against the Rockies. He would throw five and two thirds and only allow three earned runs. To do that against the Rockies at Coors Field is actually quite impressive. Perdomo has grinded it out all season long with spot starts and work out of the bullpen. It will be interesting to see how he can fair against the Fish. I expect that the Padres will be able to win this series. If they can play all of their cards right, we may even see that eluded series sweep. If the Minnesota Twins are capable of winning a series against the Marlins, there is no reason why the Pads can’t do the same.
Players To Watch
Giancarlo Stanton is having a rough season. Stanton has 12 home runs. Well that’s not too bad. But then you take a look at his batting average of .172. Even our own Matt Kemp has a higher BA than him. Even with his rough season it is quite obvious why Stanton is in the players to watch. I mean he is, Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton is simply one of the most exiting players to watch. He is capable of hitting baseballs where no one else can. His power surpasses even Barry Bonds on juice. I expect at least a home run by Stanton in this series. Even if he cant do anything in the game, you might want to head early to see the show he will put on in batting practice.
Just like Stanton, Ozuna has 12 home runs to his name. However, unlike Stanton his BA is much better. Ozuna has been having a killer season. His BA is at .319 with 37 RBI as well. There are quite a few players who deserve to be in the ASG instead of Dexter Fowler. Marcell Ozuna is another name on that list. He really has looked impressive for the Marlins. Despite all of this Ozuna has struggled against the Padres. In 14 career games Ozuna has a BA of .240 with only one home run against the Friars. Padres pitchers should still be on the lookout for what Ozuna can bring to the table.
The Marlins have four players currently batting over .300. Among them are Marcell Ozuna, Chritian Yelich, Martin Prado and of course Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro is having yet another “Ichiro” type season as he has a BA of .336. It is just amazing how Ichiro keeps on staying consistent with his bat. Ichiro really is one of our generations best players. He is also quite simply one of the best players ever. One of the best pure hitters of all time. Suzuki sits at 2,974 career MLB hits. He will more than likely be able to knock himself a few more hits to reach closer to that 3000 mark. It always is quite amazing just to see Ichiro do his thing at the plate. He will definitely be a player to keep your eye on in this series.
Jay has been a pretty good lead off man for the Padres this season. Jay has a solid BA of .287, which leads the team along with Wil Myers. Also like Myers Jay has done far better at home than on the road. Jay has manged to hit .321 at home while only batting a mere .250 on the road. Jay has been another odd case of Petco Park helping out a player’s bat. Jay is coming off a really average series at Coors Field. “The Federalist” manged to go just 3-13 in the three game span. It should be interesting to see how Jay will fair against his hometown team.
Matchup
Padres vs Wei-Yin Chen
The matchups in this series will be quite interesting. Almost no starting pitcher for either team has faced any batters for either team. The one that seemed to be more popular among Padres batters was Wei-Yin Chen. Even then just a handful of players have faced the Taiwanese pitcher. Most of them were the former A.L. players the Padres currently have on the roster. Adam Rosales has not been able to do anything against Chen in three at bats. Wil Myers has faced chen 12 times and has only manged to get two hits and a walk. Derek Norris has had a bit more success against Chen. Norris has gone 3-9 against Chen with a walk and a home run. Yangervis Solarte has only had two at bats against Wei-Yin but has managed to get himself a double. Melvin Upton Jr. has struggled severely against Chen as he has gone 1-15, with a walk and five strikeouts. Alexei Ramirez has been one of the more successful Friars as he has gone 5-14 agaist Chen with three doubles. For the most part the Friars have struggled against Chen. But he is the only pitcher on the Marlins that they have some decent exposure to. I expect that the Friars will be able to defeat Chen on Monday night.
Storyline
We May Witness History
Ichiro is just four hits away from unofficially tying Pete Rose‘s Hit record. I believe that Ichiro will unofficially break Pete Rose’s record in this series. Now I keep on using the word “unofficially” and well it is fitting. There are quite a few people that believe that it’s an official record regardless of whether Ichiro achieved over 1000 hits in Japan. Now this is completely false reasoning. The Japanese League, while very competitive is nowhere near the MLB. There is very clear evidence in very simple things. The big one is the players who turn out to be stars in that league. I mean look at Wladimir Balentien. Complete scrub with a .221 career BA in the MLB. But in Japan the guy is a consistent all star. You can clearly see the difference in leagues with that alone. Now with that said, I’m not downing Ichiro at all. It is still an extraordinary mark by all means. I’m surely exited to see if Ichiro can bag himself five hits in this series. I am certain that he will accomplish this feat at Petco Park. You might want to head out to the ballpark to see this one. Go Padres!
Francisco, 26, Chula Vista/Tijuana. I have been a Padres fan all my life, did most of the series previews and recaps in the Padres’ 2016 season for EVT. Now I focus more on the local soccer scene. Tijuana Xolos, San Diego Loyal, San Diego Wave.