The San Diego Padres are 2-5 on their current road trip, and they have one more chance to turn things around in Miami.
The San Diego Padres have a three-game series against the Miami Marlins this weekend, and it’s their last chance to salvage what’s been a very difficult road trip to date. The Padres lost two of three to the Kansas City Royals, then three of four to the Atlanta Braves, so this final leg is about righting the ship and possibly saving their season.
The Marlins represent a great opportunity to do it. Miami has been the definition of streaky, and they’re currently riding a nine-game losing streak, as they’ve been swept in their last three series by the Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Guardians.
The Padres haven’t been much better, and they’ve mastered the art of falling just short during this road trip. They did it three times this week against the Braves by dropping one-run games in a series of agonizing defeats.
On paper Miami represents a great opportunity to get back on track, but that streakiness also includes a six-game winning streak before the Marlins tanked, and they were white-hot in June. This is truly a wild-card series, with Miami just two games ahead of the Padres in the wild card race.
Managing the Padres rotation is an exercise in damage control, with German Marquez being the next man up in a series of starters who have been consistently battered, with the exception of Michael King. King won’t start in this series, though, as the Padres will send JP Sears and Walker Buehler to the mound in the second and third games, respectively.
The Padres have been able to limit the damage with Marquez by shortening his outings, although he did go five innings without giving up an earned run to the Arizona Diamondbacks three starts ago.
The San Diego offense has been showing signs of life lately, and there will be opportunities there as well. Marlins starters got hit hard by the Houston Astros, as they gave up 18 runs in three games.
This connects well with the power the Padres have shown lately. Both Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado have been on home run tears, as has Ty France, and Fernando Tatis Jr. hit the longest home run of the season at 474 feet against Atlanta.
The math is simple here. Taking two out of three would allow the Padres to pick up a game on Miami and get back in the wild card hunt, and a sweep would mean they’re serious about being contenders. Anything less than that would further establish the Padres as sellers with the Aug. 3 deadline fast approaching.
