Sweep at AT&T ends in a bloodbath

Whatever the opposite of "firing on all cylinders" is, the San Diego Padres are just about there in terms of production over the past 3 games. Blown opportunities and a shaky bullpen, a quality pitching start met with cold bats, and a complete meltdown on defense. Each loss has its silver lining, and today's noon game had its own. But the rest of the cloud was filled with crap.

After earning his very first win last week against the Cardinals, Andrew Cashner was poised to lead the Padres to victory and avoid the big ugly sweep. He came off two starts only allowing one earned run each, and had effectively started to trim down is ERA. That kind of went out the window today.

2 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 2 K

Cash had two innings to offer today before having to hand things over to the bullpen. A bullpen that has been on-and-off the past few games, but was entirely lights out in Tuesday's game. That, also, went out the window. Four earned runs from Michael Kirkman, whose MLB profile picture still has him on the Rangers. Three earned runs from Luis Perdomo, who now has a 10+ ERA. And a desperate effort from Brad Hand and Fernando Rodney to stop the runs from gushing out.

Weeks' run-scoring triple

In contradiction to last night's behavior, the Friar's bats were responding every chance they could get. A four-run 3rd inning featuring a Jemile Weeks RBI-triple, a ground-out RBI from Cashner, and a two-run homer from Matt Kemp (his 6th HR of the season) helped make the scoreboard look good for the Pads

Kemp's go-ahead two-run homer

Brett Wallace dinged in some damage in the 6th with an RBI-double to score Will Myers, and by then the Padres had just about cut the by-then 6 run lead in half. In the 7th, Will Myers hit his 5th home run of April, and then Adam Rosales launched his second homer of the month at the top of the 9th.

Myers' (twelve game hitting streak) three-run smash

Then the flame was snuffed, and the loss was taken. 9 hits and 9 runs, 12 left on base and 12 strikeouts, and a rough plane trip back down to southern California. Luckily, after their off-day today and off day tomorrow, they're only expected to face up against Alex Wood, who had a tough time in Coors over the weekend. We get to see Cesar Vargas show us his stuff against another big-boy team. VAMOS VARGAS.