:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46378176/usa-today-8575545.0.jpg)
Its been a rough May for Padres fans. Starting with the huge dip in quality starts for our starting rotation, piled on with a few injuries to key bats, following with a total halt of standard offensive production. The Friars dropped their second straight to the Cubs last night, conceding the series and pushing themselves two games below .500.
It's hard to avoid riddling Padres discussion with negativity, but it ends up being near-impossible when your pitchers are giving up record-number HR's and the bats you paid and traded for aren't matching that outgoing pace. Last night, Odrisamer Despaigne looked to bounce back from his abysmal start last week against the Nationals, where he gave up 7 earned runs in only 3 innings.
Against the Cubbies, Despaigne limited the damage to a (what should have been) harmless 2-run HR in the top of the 1st. In six innings of work he only allowed 6 hits while striking out 4, keeping his team very much so in the game. Dale Thayer would go on to relieve OD and give up a solo HR of his own, keeping the Cubs up 3-0. The Padres lineup refused to string anything together against a dominate Kyle Hendricks.
The Friar bats made Hendricks look really good last night, only scraping together 5 hits and striking out 7 times. Those give hits came from Matt Kemp (who has seemed to strike out in every at bat this series so far), Justin Upton, Will Venable, and Will Middlebrooks (who ended up going 2-3.) No Padres managed to pull a walk from Hendricks in 9 innings of work.
The positive take-aways:
- Odrisamer didn't crap the bed. The nervousness if OD could keep the gap in the starting rotation glued together can shed away slightly last night, putting in a standard quality start after an absolute dumpster fire.
- Kemp made contact, seriously. There's no highlight video but trust me, he did. That means in at least one of his bats didn't strike out swinging weakly at a ball at the outside corner.
- We have a chance to catch up some ground against the Doyers this weekend.
Oh god please win guys. Please.
| Roll Call Info | |
|---|---|
| Total comments | 125 |
| Total commenters | 19 |
| Commenter list | Christopher Hondros, Faith Keeper, Friar Fever, LittleJeddyGoesToWar, Mad_Villain, SD.394, SDfaninLA, Senor_Lumpy, Tom Sawyer, Zen Blade, abara, hashtagtroll, jthunder93, miguelhorchata, nbkoy2c, overkill94DT, roydjt, shawman35, whithd3 |
| Story URLs | |