Our Padres are coming off a confidence-boosting 6-1 win against Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals yesterday and split the two-game series. Anthony Bass put up a very strong performance and our Padres played some great baseball to get to Strasburg and come out with a victory. Today they open up another two-game series at home against our Southern California rivals, the Dodgers.

We will send Clayton Richard to the mound to try to turn his luck around against LA. He has lost his last five starts, and in those starts he has racked up a 6.32 ERA. Today he hopes to go back to the form he was in the first time he faced the Dodgers this year, when he pitched seven solid innings without allowing an earned run in his season debut. Richard is 5-1 in nine career starts against the Dodgers so hopefully he can continue to dominate them.

LA will send a lefty to the mound as well. Chris Capuano is undefeated this season for the Dodgers, but our Padres will try to change that. He has gone seven innings in each of his last three starts and has given up only six runs total in his last six starts. However, our Padres have faced worst (see: Strasburg, Halladay), so hopefully the team can build off its solid performance yesterday and get Richard his second win.

B Cres will be in the house today filling Petco Park with some sweet organ tunes. If you're going to the game, stop by section 311/313 and say hi!

GO FRIARS!! KEEP THE FAITH!!

The team is for sale, everybody knows that. We've had names like Peter O'Malley and Steven Cohen mentioned as possible suitors. Just today [EDIT: The Tull connection was actually made last week here.], after we successfully put liquid heat in Stephen Strasburg's jock, a new name was thrown out there.

He is a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers

He runs the hugely-successful Legendary Pictures and is responsible for bringing us such films as Inception, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, and 300

He's one of the most powerful men in Hollywood - Thomas Tull, the hero San Diego deserves.

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I missed the last two thirds of the game, but wow-wee! I've got a date with the DVR tonight to catch the replay at 7pm.

Here's some thoughts:

• Anthony Bass pitched 8 strong innings, like country strong innings. He didn't give up a hit until the 4th.
• Dex will tell you that I don't follow any other teams or players, but I'm infatuated for some reason with Bryce Harper highlights. He hit his second home run today in the bottom of the 5th. I had to punch myself in the jock to settle myself and remember it was against the Padres.
• The home plate umpire attempted to start the game after the rain delay without the rest of his umpiring crew on the field. That's the kind of attention to detail that you need to be an umpire these days.
  
• Will Venable had 4 hits and hit for the tricycle, missing out on the home run.
• James Darnell went deep, like Leila Rahimi's voice.
• John Baker kinda looks like Hannah's "boyfriend" on Girls right? He was the only Padre who had faced Stephen Strasburg before today and he baked up three hits.

I don't really know what else to say since I didn't actually see the game.

UPDATE:

Davey Johnson implied heat balm to the wrong anatomical area contributed to Strasburg's undoing against #Padres. Can't make this stuff up.

— Tom Krasovic (@tomkrasovic) May 15, 2012

Meanwhile in the Game Thread, london_balling led the way with 156 comments and sdsuaztec4 bragged about being in law school 156 times:

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Well, our Padres couldn't get the job done yesterday against the Nationals. Tim Stauffer, fresh off the DL and a few rehab starts, made just a few mistakes but overall pitched well in his 2012 debut. He allowed three runs on seven hits over five innings, striking out five and walking three, and even brought home the tying run in the 4th with a sac bunt. Our Padres then scored the go-ahead run in the top of the fifth on a Chase Headley two-out single, and Stauffer pitched a scoreless bottom of the 5th. Stauffer was then due up in the lineup in the 6th, but Bud Black sent in Jeff Suppan as a pinch hitter to lay down a bunt to try to score an insurance run. The insurance never came, however, and the bullpen turned our 5-4 lead into an 8-5 loss.

Today's chances don't look so great either as our Padres get set to face Stephen Strasburg in the finale of this two-game series. Strasburg is currently tied for the NL lead in strikeouts (51), and he hopes to really add to that tally against a Padres lineup that has accumulated the second most strikeouts in the majors. His last start against the Pirates saw him strike out 7 consecutive batters and 13 total batters. It seems like our only hope is for Anthony Bass to really get into a groove early and shut down the Washington offense completely.

Bass is coming off a couple of rough outings and hopes to rebound by taking advantage of a low-scoring Nats lineup. Since joining the rotation out of the bullpen, Bass has struggled now and then, but overall has thrown the ball well and has shown a lot of progress. I'm sure most baseball fans tuning into today's game will be doing so to watch Strasburg and to see just how many Padres he can strike out, but hopefully Bass will give those fans something to watch as well. If Bass can pitch like he's capable of, I can see this game being a really good pitcher's duel.

#Padres 5/15 lineup @Nationals Venable 9, Maybin 8, Headley 5, Alonso 3, Hudson 4, Darnell 7, Baker 2, Parrino 6, Bass 1

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) May 15, 2012

It's our second Breakfasttown game in three days. Hopefully Our Padres fare better in this one. Let's all watch the game and chat here in the game thread while eating breakfast. Ready GO!

GO FRIARS!! KEEP THE FAITH!!

Jeff Suppan dropped his first game of the season in yesterday's series finale against the Phillies. He kept the game close, allowing only three runs (two earned), but that was just a little too much for our Padres to overcome. Unfortunately we couldn't get much off Cole Hamels. Our Padres made it interesting in the 8th by scoring to get within a run of the Phillies, but couldn't muster up enough offense to win.

Today we get what seems like the first bit of really good news in a season full of bad news. Tim Stauffer returns to make his 2012 debut after suffering an elbow injury at the end of Spring Training that landed him on the DL. He will take the mound and kick off a two-game series against the Nationals today. Stauffer pitched three rehab starts in Tucson and Lake Elsinore, striking out nine and issuing zero walks in 15.2 total innings. He posted a 1.72 ERA in his rehab work and feels good coming into today's game.

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For completion's sake, I add this game recap...

Honestly, I've said it before, but Jeff Suppan was not supposed to be here. Regardless of how down on this team you may be, you were not expecting Jeff Suppan to be pitching games for us in May and yet here he is holding things down like a boss.

Would we have won this game with one of the other half a dozen options that were supposed to be here before Jeff Suppan?

Probably not. Maybe yes. But probably not.

Either way, I take this as a moral victory.

Go Padres.

This is the kind of story that could keep the Phillie Phanatic out of the #1 spot again next year on Forbes' America's Favorite Sports Mascots. It sure sounds like he drives his ATV like number two.

During the pre-game ceremony at Citizen's Bank Ballpark the Phanatic recklessly drove his ATV within a foot of hitting Yonder Alonso.

UTSanDiego.com: Alonso misses collision

"I didn’t see him coming and he was driving way too fast," said Alonso. "I was moving around the kids’ choir getting ready to sing the National Anthem when he flew past me on his ATV. I would have sued him.

The way this season has been going I'm surprised Alonso wasn't run down by mascot. With 40% of the team's payroll on the disabled list, our double hitting first baseman getting hit by a furry green mascot would be icing on the cake. Headlines would have read "Alonso suffers quad injury" or "ATV driven over Yonder".