Series Recap: Padres Lose 3 of 4 in Desert to Diamondbacks
On Thursday night, the San Diego Padres lost for the third time in four nights in Arizona.
Like I wrote in my preview for this series, Padres’ pitchers needed to be on top of their game in order to stop a very potent D-backs’ line-up.
Sadly that wasn’t the case as not one of the San Diego starters managed to give the team a quality start in the series.
Game 1 (D-backs 7, Padres 6)
In game one of the four game set, Jhoulys Chacin got rocked with seven earned runs in six innings. The offense managed to stage a rally in the last third of the game, but it wasn’t enough as the Padres lost the game 7-6. Chris Owings hit his first career grand slam and Zack Greinke shut down the Padres, recording 11 strikeouts in his six innings of work. Wil Myers and Austin Hedges both homered for the Padres in the loss.
Game 2 (D-backs 9, Padres 3)
On Tuesday, manager Andy Green gave the ball to Clayton Richard, hoping that he would repeat his performance against Arizona from earlier in the season. Unfortunately the snakes were ready for Richard, as they knocked him out of the game after 3 and 2/3 innings in which he gave up eight hits and six runs. Craig Stammen replaced Richard, but he didn’t have success. In just 1.2 innings of relief he gave up a couple of runs, thus putting the game out of reach for the Padres. Yangervis Solarte had three hits for the Friars on the night and Jabari Blash hit his first home run of the year.
Game 3 (Padres 8, D-backs 5)
San Diego’s most consistent starter this year has been the hometown boy, Trevor Cahill. On Wednesday, he had the opportunity to stop a four-game losing streak. But just like in the previous games, Arizona jumped to an early 4-0 lead. It looked like the D-backs were on their way to a comfortable win for a third night in a row, but the Padres’ bats came to life in the ninth inning against former Padre, Fernando Rodney. Down 5-3 entering the final frame, San Diego mounted a furious comeback highlighted by Ryan Schimpf‘s three-run HR that gave San Diego their first lead of the series. Yangervis Solarte would bring home a couple of insurance runs to give the Padres a 8-5 victory.
Game 4 (D-backs 6, Padres 2)
For the series finale, the Padres handed the ball to Jered Weaver, hoping that he could duplicate his solid effort from last Saturday. The game started out great as Yangervis Solarte’s base knock scored Manuel Margot to give the Padres a 1-0 lead, but unfortunately that would be the only good news of the night. Weaver never seemed to get comfortable and he made crucial mistakes against Chris Owings and Yasmany Tomas. He surrendered two home runs to Owings, and another to the Cuban slugger and that proved to be too steep of a mountain for the Padres to climb. Arizona took the final game 6-2. Ryan Schimpf homered for the second night in a row for the Friars.
Overall, the series went somewhat as I had envisioned. Arizona proved to be too much for the Padres’ pitching staff to handle. The offense showed signs, but it’s impossible to play from behind every game and expect to win. At the end of the day we all know that this season is a building block for the future. As a long as the young players show improvement, I think that’s all that you can realistically ask for from the 2017 San Diego Padres.
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