The San Diego Padres and the Milwaukee Brewers play a rubber game today for the series. The Padres won the first game in extra innings and the Brewers won the second game last night. Both games were low scoring and I expect that to be the case again today. However, the Brewers have some key players missing from their lineup.
Willy Adames and Hunter Renfroe will both be out of the lineup again with injuries. Josh Hader should also miss another game on the family emergency list. Devin Williams and Trevor Gott have also pitched two straight games for the Brewers now. Gott is most likely unavailable considering he would be pitching in his fourth game in five nights. Brad Boxberger is available, but he threw 28 pitches in a blown save two nights ago. This Brewers lineup is completely thinned out right now, and they will need every player they can get against a red-hot Padres team.
The Padres on the other hand have their whole bullpen available after saving all their top arms in a close game last night. They have their top four in Robert Suarez, Nabil Crismatt, Luis Garcia, and Taylor Rogers all rested to pitch after Yu Darvish. Yu Darvish also pitches much better at home. He is 2-0 with a 1.37 ERA at home and 2-1 with a 5.81 ERA on the road. He has also pitched quality starts in six of his eight starts this season. However, when he was hit, he was hit very hard. But both those starts came on the road against good offenses in the Giants and Braves. The Brewers offense has been on fire as well, but I think they will start to significantly cool off now that they are missing so much firepower.
Aaron Ashby will get the start for the Brewers, and he won’t pitch more than four innings. He has yet to pitch more than four innings this season, and he only pitched one inning in his last appearance five days ago. As I mentioned, the Brewers bullpen is in bad shape in the first place, so this is terrible timing for a bullpen game for them. The Padres also hit lefties really well, they are ranked 5th in the league in wOBA against lefties and they are ranked 6th in the league in wOBA against lefties in the month of May. I like the Padres at home here to get the win.