The San Diego Padres had a rough end to May, dropping six of its final seven games to close out the month with a 32-26 record going into June.
After losing the rubber match to the Washington Nationals 4-2 Sunday, the San Diego Padres lost six of its final seven games in May and finished the month 13-15.
San Diego was rolling through April but couldn’t keep the momentum going throughout May. The Padres are still holding the top National League wild card spot but are now five games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the NL West.
Padres right-hander Griffin Canning pitched well against Washington, tossing five innings and allowing three runs on six hits and two walks while striking out three, but fell to 0-4 on the season.
Canning was outpitched by Nationals righty Zack Littell, who went six innings and allowed two runs on five hits and two walks while fanning five to earn his fifth win.
Center fielder Jackson Merrill, who is part of a trio of Padres stars that haven’t done much offensively, went 3-for-4 and scored one of San Diego’s two runs in the contest. Right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. and third baseman Manny Machado both went hitless, but this was the first game in a week that Tatis didn’t record at least one hit.
Tatis was one of very few qualified players to not hit a home run until the middle game of the series, when he smashed a 451-foot homer to left. As you could imagine, Tatis threw his arms up in relief and the dugout celebrated accordingly.
Tatis had already started heating up, so you could see his first bomb of the season coming. Now that he has one, he may start hitting them in bunches, and facing Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola is a great opportunity to tee off and hit another.
Nola will toe the rubber against Padres right-hander Randy Vasquez in a rematch from last week as the two teams face off just one week removed from Philadelphia’s sweep.
Nola is 3-4 with a 5.72 ERA, 1.45 WHIP and 56 strikeouts through 11 starts (56.2 innings). He has struggled with inconsistency this season, but he picked up his third win of the season against these Padres after throwing six two-run innings on three hits with five punchouts.
Vasquez has been huge for San Diego given how thin the starting rotation is and he is 5-3 with a 3.28 ERA, 1.23 WHIP and 47 strikeouts through 11 starts (60.1 innings). He took the loss in the first meeting after allowing four runs on eight hits and one walk while fanning two in 5.2 innings.
First pitch is at 3:40 p.m. PDT on TBS, MLB.TV and regional sports networks.
