Padres Look To Extend Their Win Streak Today vs. Giants

The San Diego Padres have a win streak going, and it’s a big one. They’ve won six straight, and they’ll be looking to finish off their series sweep against the San Francisco Giants tonight in the series finale. 

In the process, the Padres have scrambled the NL wild card race. They gained groud on the Arizona Diamondbacks yesterday as Arizona lost to the Texas Rangers, and the Padres are also making the Philadelphia Phillies nervous, as they’re just a half game behind the Phils, who are in the second wild card spot. 

This is actually the perfect time for the Padres to be doing this sort of thing. They’re in a schedule lull that has them playing the Washington Nationals, the Giants and the Colorado Rockies, so this is the time for them to be making a statement before finishing with six games against the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Dbacks. 

The Padres will rely on starter Nick Pivetta to get it done, and this is a whole story in and of itself. Pivetta will be making just his second start after coming back from an elbow strain, and he somehow managed to go five innings on a tight pitch count. 

San Diego would love to get more of the same, but they really shouldn’t count on it the way this series has gone so far. The Padres have gotten off to big leads in each of the first two games, but the Giants have made serious comebacks that have put the outcome in doubt until the final pitch. 

San Francisco will counter with Logan Webb, who’s a tough matchup. He’s had a couple of clunker starts in his last five, but when he’s on, he’s tough. He went six innings against the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday in his last start and gave up just a run on three hits and a walk to go with eight strikeouts as the Giants got a 5-4 win in 11 innings. 

The Padres will also have to deal with the offensive nightmare that is Rafael Devers, who’s been destroying them in this series so far. Devers has been a one-man wrecking crew -- he’s homered in both games so far, with one of his shots being a grand slam that tightened things up considerably yesterday in the Padres’ narrow 7-6 win. 

Expect to do plenty of scoreboard watching tonight as the Padres look to put both the Giants and the series to bed.