SD 6, CHC 1: Shields Shuts Down Six in Five

This Sunday afternoon James Shields quickly canceled out and skepticism about his ability. Not his pitching, that is. We all know Shields can take the mound against the best of them. Instead, we saw James smack a line drive into center field while completely shutting down the Cubs for five straight innings.

Shields continues the tradition of Padres pitchers with hot bats with his shot to center field.

The roster was firing on all cylinders. Stringing together 12 hits,  Wil Myers, Tommy Medica, and Brett Wallace all gave their lumber some action today to drive in six. If you haven't noticed already, Medica has been an absolute monster in spring training so far. In addition to his 2-run home run and RBI-groundout today, Medica has 15 hits and 11 RBI's in 27 at bats. That's a .556 AVG and 1.674 OPS.  That's this Tommy Medica? Oh yeah, he had a home run yesterday too.

Uh, yeah. That's gone. Medica smashes this poor baseball into deep left to score Brett Wallace.

Wil Myers' spring training has been no joke either. Today his RBI-double is what kicked off the scoring that ended up dog piling the Padres atop the Cubbies. Launched to the warning track and bouncing off the center field wall, Myers' stand up double in the leadoff spot was his fourth in twelve starts.

Myers kicks off the scoring in the 7th by launching something nice into the warning track.

Defensively, the Padres' only run was conceded in the form of a solo shot off Jose Valverde. Over at the hot corner, Yangervis Solarte was shutting things down. In addition to his 1-3 offensive outing, Solarte snagged a sharp line drive and ran up on a tough infield dribbler to secure two hard-earned outs. It almost feels like these guys are really playing to earn their starter spots.

Solarte completely locks down the 2nd inning by staying on top of a dribbler that attempts to beat the shift, then snaring a tough line drive and booping Javier Baez on the butt after the fact.

And like that the Padres have pushed out another constructive game closer to opening day. Not much seems to missing with this squad. The fresh faces are giving performances that are confidence-boosters. The positions that are being competed for are actually seeing, well, competition.

Tomorrow we'll get to see what more Tyson Ross has been working on against the White Sox and their Jose Quintana.

What up, Freshershest! You collected the most recs today, while axlar kept the discussion going with the most comments.