The good news is that we face a sub .500 team.
Ah, like I said in my previous preview, which was #27, for every Series there is good news and there is bad news.
The good news is that Brazil has lost. Ouch, just like last time, let me try this again: the good news is that no longer is the Padres a team with a record over .500. You all know what that means: the Diamondbacks have a terrible record against teams that are above .500, so with the Padres no longer being there, we have a terrific opportunity to go over Mount .500 again.
The bad news is
that our best pitcher, Eduardo Rodriguez, will not take the mound in this series, so it will all be a gamble.
This series is 4 games. That is a lot of games. Sweeping is probably out of the question, but taking 3 should be possible, right?
Let’s take a look.
We have seen the San Diego Padres in just one series so far this season, and that was a 2-game series on April 25 and April 26. The Padres were tied as league leaders when they visited Chase Field at that moment, with a solid 17-8 record. The Diamondbacks were also in la la land, standing at 14-11, though the series loss against Chicago White Sox might have been a bit sour.
The first game was a 6-4 loss, Arizona could not hold a 4-0 lead after 2 innings: Pfaadt loaded the bases and Taylor Clarke emptied them, in a way a pitcher should not. The second game was pretty much the other way around, with the Padres taking a 6-0 lead after the top 5, a weak performance from Ryne Nelson, only to go down 12-7, with the Snakes scoring 10 runs in the 7th and 8th inning, amongst them a Tim Tawa grand-slam.
That was then, and this is now.
What is now?
Now is a Diamondbacks’ record that has not changed that much, going from 15-13 to 44-45. Now is also the total collapse of the San Diego Padres. After that first win against the Diamondbacks the Padres were 10 games above .500 and took the sole lead of the NL West. After that they pretty much gave good competition against the Dodgers, sitting closely behind them for almost the entire month of May, going 11 games over .500 at a certain moment, until the Phillies came to San Diego on May 25 and swept the Padres, the beginning of a slow downfall.
Ever since that series, the Padres have gone 13-24.
Over that span, the Padres still have a better offence than the Diamondbacks. Ha, you would not have suspected that, right? Truth is that, despite not being an All Star, Fernando Tatis Jr. still has been able to provide a 144 WRC+ in that time period, despite the lack of power and pop. Except for Xander Bogaerts and Jackson Merrill, the Padres’ batting lineup has still been able to provide a run here and there, though sporadically, but all above or close to 100 WRC+.
Their starting and relief pitching has been bad, except for their star closer (and their top relievers are solid too), but more or less similar to the Diamondbacks’ pitching. As a matter of fact, xERA is slightly better than Arizona’s, though the ERA is not. Most likely, the Padres are not as good as they were the first two months of the season and are probably not as bad as they have been ever since. Their current record might be a good reflection of who they are this season, so this series will probably balance out or the luckier team might win.
The Padres receive the Diamondbacks with an injured list full of pitchers, a la Diamondbacks: Joe Musgrove (setback), Yu Darvish (out for the year), Nick Pivetta, Lucas Giolito, Randy Vasquez, David Morgan and Jason Adam (the latter being of the better relievers) all have no timetable for return.
The past two years, the Padres have had the Diamondbacks’ number. Arizona still maintains an all-time lead over San Diego, though it is shrinking: 248-234.
Matchups.
Game #1 Mon 07/06 6:40 PM MST, Brandon Pfaadt (ARI) vs Walker Buehler (SDP).
- Brandon Pfaadt. 14 G, 4 GS, 43.1 IP, 1 W-1 L, 5.40 ERA, 5.44 FIP, 1.41 WHIP, 33/18 K/BB. $3,400,000.
- Walker Buehler. 17 GS, 82.0 IP, 5 W-4 L, 4.61 ERA, 3.89 FIP, 1.38 WHIP, 76/30 K/BB. $1,500,000.
Brandon Pfaadt might still piss his bed when he thinks about the last time when he faced the Padres. It was in long relief, loading the bases and seeing Taylor Clarke relieve and gift him with 4 runs. But that Pfaadt no longer exists. We now have a renewed and rejuvenated Brandon Pfaadt, who knows how to strike the batters out, but, above all, keeps the hard hits limited. Unlike his fellow veterans Gallen and Kelly, Pfaadt now knows how to keep the balls in the park, something he had no idea about until going back to Reno. There, in the desert, he learned in 10 innings all that there is to know about baseball and how to become an ace in the major leagues. Pfaadt will lead the Diamondbacks to a victory and himself to everlasting success!
One who was on that road of success as well, was Walker Buehler. He was a menace in Los Angeles, an All Star and Cy Young contender, until he had to undergo Tommy John and ever since, he has never been the same again. In 2025 he was bad in Boston, but better in relief in Philadelphia. San Diego offered him a one-year contract. If Buehler continues to pitch like he does, he is a good candidate to get a Mike Soroka-like contract next season and the next ones, getting one year deals that flirt with 8 digit figures.
Game #2 Tue 07/07 6:40 PM MST, Zac Gallen (ARI) vs TBD.
- Zac Gallen. 18 GS, 92.0 IP, 3 W-8 L, 6.36 ERA, 5.34 FIP, 1.57 WHIP, 56/28 K/BB. $16,199,618.
- TBD.
The Padres don’t have a starter for this game yet, because this is the spot of Randy Vasquez, who hit the injured list recently and is without a timetable of return. Good chance the Padres call up Jhony Brito, who pitched briefly in the majors in 2023 and 2024 but was injured in the 2025 season. He recently returned and has pitched to an excellent 0.96 ERA in the PCL in 4 starts in June (18.2 innings). If he ends up starting this game, he will probably be on a short lease.
In my last series preview I said that it was hardly possible to get any worse than Gallen has pitched so far, but I was wrong, because his ERA keeps on rising. Last time Gallen held an opponent scoreless or limited to less than 2 runs was on April 25, against these Padres, when he had a brief appearance of 3 innings because of an injury. Maybe the Padres will inspire him again to a scoreless performance.
Game #3 Wed 07/08 7:10 PM MST, Jose Cabrera (ARI) vs Michael King (SDP).
- Jose Cabrera. 3 GS, 79.2 IP, 3 W-6 L, 6.10 ERA, 4.97 FIP, 1.63 WHIP, 52/25 K/BB. $412,929.
- Michael King. 15 GS, 89.0 IP, 6 W-2 L, 2.73 ERA, 3.68 FIP, 1.16 WHIP, 55/17 K/BB. $9,000,000.
After an encouraging debut, Jose Cabrera is experiencing the major leagues, with a tough performance against the Rays and an even tougher one against the Brewers. Maybe the Padres’ lineup will offer Cabrera a breeze, but more likely he will continue to learn the hard way in the major leagues. If he is hit hard, good chance it will be his final performance in the major leagues because he won’t be necessary for the final series before the All Star break, and after that, who knows.
Michael King has been the sole starting pitching star on this Padres’ squad, in what will most likely be his final year in San Diego, before skipping the player options and testing the free agency market, looking to sign a new contract before a lock-out becomes inevitable. King has faced the Diamondbacks four times in his career, all as a Padre, and has never lost.
Game #4 Thu 07/09 6:40 PM MST, Merrill Kelly (ARI) vs Griffin Canning (SDP).
- Merrill Kelly. 15 GS, 86.2 IP, 6 W-8 L, 5.71 ERA, 6.02 FIP, 1.56 WHIP, 53/35 K/BB. $18,000,000.
- Griffin Canning. 12 G, 9 GS, 51.0 IP, 1 W-6 L, 6.71 ERA, 5.07 FIP, 1.61 WHIP, 50/30 K/BB. $1,000,000.
Good chance that the final game of this series will become an absolute spectacle of a slugfest, with Merrill Kelly, the homer-prone pitcher, facing Griffin Canning, who is having a nightmare of a season. Merrill was once again hittable, but the Brewers couldn’t hurt Kelly too much, and despite one homerun, only gave up 2 runs. That is what we call a quality outing.
Canning did his starting and has also been used after an opener this season. In either case, it has not really worked for him. Canning is in the rotation because all others are injured, otherwise, he would have probably seen himself working in either long relief / mop-up or bumped off the roster. Canning was one of those prospects the Angels tried to rocket into the major leagues, but after an encouraging start, he never could cement himself as a major league starter, though he had an okay bounceback last year for the New York Mets. He faced the Diamondbacks last year with the Mets, getting a win, allowing only 1 run in 5 innings. It looks like the league has adjusted to this groundball pitcher once more, because the changeup he so successfully deployed last season, is now getting hit hard by the batters.
