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D-backs versus Padres - Series Preview

Beaches versus Beeches, Air Force Town versus Navy Town, Justin's current versus his ex.....

By piratedan7
The Padres did this a LOT yesterday against the Giants
The Padres did this a LOT yesterday against the Giants
Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

The Pads are busy enjoying the rarities of being an above .500 club at this point in the season for what seems like an eternity.  With competent pitching and a new offensively orientated outfield, they were the darlings of the off-season capturing mouse clicks and quickie segments on the televised universe of all things baseball.  Now, a month into the season, while there are certainly some surprises, the Padres have been not as awesome as promised but also they are still playing competent baseball.

Their retooling madness is more along the lines of Extreme Home Makeover rather than the D-Back's Flip or Flop methodology, we shall see at the end of the season which method had any inherent value or if both teams are still gnashing their teeth at those pesky proponents of hardball in the greater Los Angeles Basin... but enough about the Angels.

We get them for four games in the friendly confines of Chase Field and as expected in the SSS of our lives, there's not a lot to glean from the tea leaves (or coffee grinds or beer backwash for that matter).  They are 5-5 in their last 10 and 6-7 on the road.  The lack of trends from which to extrapolate anything other than mediocre is somewhat disturbing.

The Band Aid Brigade

The Padres do have some players with some owwies:

Disabled List

New Faces/Places

In fact, it's easier to simply list who's left after their Stalinesque purge of their roster:

SS - Amarista

1B -  Alonso

SP - Cashner, Ross, Kennedy

Bench - Gyorko, Spangerburg, Venable

Bullpen - Thayer, Despaigne

That's ten holdovers from the previous roster of 25 in case some of you needed to have some perspective tossed your way.

PITCHING MATCHUPS
  • Thursday: Despaigne vs. DeLaRosa
  • Friday: Shields vs. Hellickson
  • Saturday: Ross vs The Matrix
  • Sunday: Cashner  vs. Some Dude wearing a D-Backs uniform
TACO FACTOR

Soft tossers like Despaigne seem to give us fits (both historically and in "we're just happy we appear to be in a epheus ball-free era" kind of way) and the D-Backs offense seems to be based on whimsy versus predictability, so I will say 2 out of 4.

MADE UP FACT

The Padres were once considered the athletic arm of the Catholic Church but the conflict between the Franciscans who controlled the big league club and the Jesuits who were in charge of the farm league teams could never be reconciled within the ranks of the Vatican.  This led to the Defenestration of Fresno, where the church divested itself of all big league interests with the exception of a portion of the profits from the popcorn vendors at Petco.

WHO'S HOT/NOT

San Diego is the best hitting team in the NL, if you use Runs scored and hits as your metric, their average isn't the best but when they do get guys on base, they apparently find a way to get them home.

Alonso and Norris are both hitting above .300

Yangervis Solarte is also hitting .299 and has a career 3 for 7 against the D'Backs and is 2 for 3 against DeLaRosa, so I suspect he'll be in the lineup today.

Oh and supposedly San Diego has this closer guy who's supposed to be really good too....

I'm not gonna delve into who is slumping, I'm sure that Bert and Bob will mention that during the broadcast to put the reverse whammy into play, not that I am superstitious or anything as I toss salt over my left shoulder onto the black cat that is walking under a ladder that is placed across a crack in the sidewalk.

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