Cashner stumbles, Jay and Kemp homer

There's an ugly trend going on this spring in the Padres camp. The regular season rotation is giving up a whole lot of runs, and there's not much getting put up in return. Let's pick out a few of the positive moments of today, and skim through the bad. At least it was only the most packed game of the season thus far.

We're underway in Peoria! #PadresST

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) March 18, 2016

Andrew Cashner threw four full innings today, giving up only 4 hits. Out of that came 5 runs, only 2 earned. The box score will tell you 5 runs in just 3 innings thrown by Cash. It will also show you that one of those runs came on a wild pitch.

Unfortunately, the relief effort from Josh Martin was more of a nail of a coffin than anything. In one inning he managed to extend the Giants snowballing lead to 5 in the 5th inning. The good news is that the remaining relief effort from Daniel McCutchen, Kevin Quackenbush, Casey Janssen, and Jose Dominguez put up a big fat goose egg for the Giants for the remainder of the game, giving up 2 hits to Cash/Martin's 8.

Things were poppin' off a little more than usual on the offensive side of things. A very first Padres home run from Jon Jay, and a shot by Matt Kemp kept the bench from being on the tail end of another blowout.

Following that up was another RBI from Jay. By the third inning the Padres were only looking at a two run deficit. All of that changed, of course, but at the very least the night ended with fresh face Jemile Weeks popping off an RBI-single to keep the score at a modest 8-4.

Watch the @TheRealMattKemp launch one to right-center for the second HR of the game, his first of #PadresST! https://t.co/bCoOXjsRMh

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) March 18, 2016

The lineup put out 13 good hits, tallied up by multi-hit games from Kemp and Yangervis Solarte. But 21 runners left on base is going to kill you one way or another.

So, the bad? Cashner not looking all that strong, which is in line with the rest of his rotation buddies this spring so far. Not a lot of capitalizing on base-runners from the Padres bats, and a shoddy bandage job from Martin to stop the type of bleeding that typically results in an L.

The good? Hits. Lots of them. Hits from Wil Myers, Derek Norris, Alexei Ramirez, and only 6 strikeouts in 40 team at-bats. Defense: balanced. Solarte had an error, and he had a star-hanging diving play that resulted in a much needed out. Then there's bullpen pitching from guys like Quackenbush blazing through an inning in only 15 pitches.

Tomorrow is another off day until we see what the Rockies are ready to bring on Saturday.