The San Francisco Giants will face the San Diego Padres today in the second game of a three-game series in San Francisco. The Padres won last night in extra innings after blowing two separate leads. However, that was also the Giants first day back on the West Coast after traveling from Philadelphia, so they were probably a little jetlagged. I think they will come back today and pull out the win. The Padres bullpen is ranked in the bottom third of the league and they had all their top arms pitch yesterday. That means they are a bit worn while the Giants have plenty of other options in their bullpen. The Padres top end of the bullpen is also very good, yet they blew a lead last night.
The Giants will start Carlos Rodon today and he was actually hit hard in his last outing against the Cardinals, but the Cardinals are the best team in the league at hitting lefties. He had pitched at least five innings without allowing more than two earned runs in all six of his starts before facing the Cardinals. He is also back home today where he has been very good. Joe Musgrove is no slouch himself, he is 4-0 with a 2.20 ERA this season but he has been showing some signs that point to a bad outing coming soon. He allowed three walks in his last start,and he has allowed a home run in each of his last two starts.
The Giants are also much healthier now with left-handed bats like Tommy La Stella and Lamonte Wade Jr. back in the lineup. I think the left-handed bats of the Giants should have success against Joe Musgrove today.
These two teams are bitter division rivals so I wouldn’t be surprised to see some bad blood. These teams have played four games so far this season, all in San Francisco. They split the four games. The Giants also won the season series last year going 11-8 against the Padres. The Giants were 6-4 at home.
I mentioned that earlier that the Padres used all their top relievers in their win yesterday. Nabil Crismatt pitched 1.2 innings so he should be unavailable today. Luis Garcia and Robert Suarez also pitched, and they are two of their best relievers. The only pitcher they saved was Taylor Rogers, who is their closer. He pitched 1.1 innings on Thursday, so he will be available, but he could be a bit worn. I like the Giants at home.
