Away in Houston
Game 1:
You’re going to notice a theme about this series, Runners. Left. On. Base.
It doesn’t matter if we can wake up the bats and load the bases if our 6-9 hole hitters can’t advance runners.
Kyle hart also had a disappointing outing where it seemed like his fastball was coming in on a frozen rope and it led to rookie Cam Smith taking him yard 2 times in the series opener, Arraez answered back with one of his own but ultimately the decision to not go to the bullpen till the 6th inning when it probably should’ve been done in the 2nd or 3rd seemed to be the reason the Pads couldn’t pull this one out.
Starter Grade: D-
Bullpen Grade: B
Hitting Grade: B-
Base running Grade: C-
Reason we won or lost: Disappointing pitching and unnecessary aggression on the base paths.
Game 2:
Michael King had a decent start in game 2 stringing together 5 solid innings, it was the 6th where things started to unravel with a Christian Walker 2 run bomb.
The Pads then went to Estrada out of the pen where he gave up the losing run to Isaac Paredes, Sadly an early shot from Tatis wasn’t enough with the Padres leaving a total of 7 runners on base.
Starter Grade: B-
Bullpen Grade: C
Hitting Grade: C
Base running Grade: C-
Reason we won or lost: Not capitalizing on RISP, leaving too many people on base.
Game 3:
The game opened with Luis Arraez colliding with the 2nd baseman going to cover first and he went down hard, it almost looked like he went into the “fencing position” and if you combine that with the fact that the Padres were already down 2 games in the series, it would’ve been easy for the game to get out of hand, but that’s the beauty of this team, Hungry. Dogs. Run. Faster…
Dylan Cease proceeded to throw 5 innings, getting in a couple of jams and letting up 2 runs but the bullpen got his back and only gave up 1 hit in the last 4 innings of the game.
This is a great look for the season moving forward, they can be on a losing streak, they can be on our second strings, but they always have the potential to win.
Starter Grade: B-
Bullpen Grade: A+
Hitting Grade: B+
Base running Grade: B+
Reason we won or lost: Fernando had another clutch home run and the rest of the bats were alive along with a shut down bullpen.
