The San Diego Padres have truly been stuck in a rut lately. The club has been unable to score enough runs to back their starting pitchers. The Friars struggled through the first six innings before scoring a run against Philadelphia Phillies’ ace Cristopher Sánchez on an RBI-single from Jackson Merrill. The lone run ended the lefty’s historic 50 2/3 scoreless innings streak.
Unfortunately, reliever Jason Adam would immediately give up the game on two mistakes, resulting in home runs to J.T. Realmuto
and Kyle Schwarber in the bottom of the seventh. Despite the Friars tacking on a run in the eighth against reliever Brad Keller, it wasn’t enough to back starter Walker Buehler’s one-run outing.
The Padres need a win. Badly. They need it any way they can get it. Hopefully that win will come today, and San Diego can salvage the series finale against Philly.
Taking the mound
Zack Wheeler (PHI) v. Lucas Giolito (SD)
The former ace returned from his season-ending surgery in 2025 and picked up right where he left off. Wheeler has pitched to a 2.27 ERA across 43 2/3 innings with a ridiculously low 0.85 WHIP. He’s been a large part of Philadelphia’s recent turnaround.
The righty got rocked by the rival Los Angeles Dodgers in his last start, allowing four runs (each on a solo home run) across six innings of work. San Diego will need to punish his mistakes in order to stave off the sweep.
Giolito had a similar poor outing recently, giving up four runs in just 2 2/3 innings pitched against the Washington Nationals this weekend. After two solid starts to the year, it was a tough watch. Giolito has struggled with command and will need to fix that when facing the Phillies’ sluggers.
His 4.97 ERA is a little misleading. He’s pitched much better than that stat line would suggest, but Giolito has also not done a lot as of late to prove that he deserves better consideration. Hopefully he’ll be able to do that this afternoon.
Batter up!
Ty France has continued to prove his usefulness, going 2-for-4 with a double in yesterday’s game. Fernando Tatis Jr. has also continued to heat up, going 1-for-4 and scoring a run for the Friars.
- Fernando Tatis Jr., 2B
- Gavin Sheets, LF
- Miguel Andujar, DH
- Manny Machado, 3B
- Ty France, 1B
- Jackson Merrill, CF
- Xander Bogaerts, SS
- Jase Bowen, RF
- Freddy Fermin, C
Most of the Padres have yet to face Wheeler but, of the ones who have, Xander Bogaerts and Merrill have had the most success. They boast a respective .300 and .286 career batting average alongside a 1.064 and 1.429 OPS against the righty.
Relief corps
With Buehler going six innings, San Diego only used two pitchers to finish out the game, with Adam and Wandy Peralta covering the final two innings. That leaves the ‘pen fresh for today should Giolito falter early again.
Jeremiah Estrada, Ron Marinaccio, Yuki Matsui, Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon and Bradgley Rodriguez will all be readily available to pitch. With the Padres on a losing streak, Miller hasn’t pitched since last Friday. Hopefully he’ll get the chance to come out in the series finale today.
