Series Preview: Padres vs. Diamondbacks
Let's reacquaint ourselves with the Padres first opponent and talk about our expectations for the first series of the season.
The Arizona Diamondbacks haven’t been good in a couple of years. Things got worse for them when they started trading away their best players (Zach Greinke, Paul Goldschmidt) in some half-ass tank strategy. They might be good again some day, but that day is not going to be in April 2021.
Pitching matchups
Yu Darvish vs. Madison Bumgarner (L)
Blake Snell (L) vs. Merrill Kelly
Joe Musgrove vs. Caleb Smith (L)
Chris Paddack vs. Taylor Widener
We haven’t yet been given confirmation that Musgrove is going to start the third game for the Padres but it would be surprising if he didn’t.
Zac Gallen, one of the prizes the Diamondbacks got back in trade for Goldschmidt, has been excellent since being called up in 2019 and is easily the best pitcher on this staff. Unfortunately, he broke his forearm a couple weeks back while attempting to work on his swing in the batting cages (NL DH NOW PLEASE) and won’t factor into this series.
The Padres would seem to having the advantage at SP in each of these games, although the Snell/Kelly matchup could be closer than we’d like it to be and who knows what we’re getting with Paddack. One advantage for the Padres is that they are loaded with right-handed hitters, especially with Trent Grisham expected to miss this series with an injury, so they should be able to tee off on Bumgarner and Smith.
Home field advantage
Ignoring spring training exhibition games, the San Diego Padres have not played baseball in front of their own fans in their own stadium since…September 2019? I imagine there’s going to be a little bit of extra adrenaline for them just from playing in front of ~8,000 screaming Padres fans that have been dying to cheer on their team in person for what feels like a decade.
Lineups
Padres
Fernando Tatis Jr., SS
Jake Cronenworth, 2B
Manny Machado, 3B
Eric Hosmer, 1B
Tommy Pham, CF
Wil Myers, RF
Victor Caratini, C
Jurickson Profar, LF
Even without Trent Grisham or Austin Nola, that’s a pretty terrifying lineup to face. It’s easy to see why so many projections have the Padres as the 2nd best team in the league this year with this level of talent littered throughout the lineup.
If Caratini and Profar get off to slow starts, I could see the Arizona pitchers trying to pitch to that last-third of the San Diego lineup. That’s probably the only way to keep these Padres off the board.
Diamondbacks
David Peralta, LF
Ketel Marte, CF
Eduardo Escobar, 3B
Christian Walker, 1B
Josh Rojas, 2B
Carson Kelly, C
Pavin Smith, RF
Nick Ahmed, SS
The Diamondbacks offense was really bad last season. They were bad at getting on base, bad at hitting the ball, bad at hitting home runs, and overall bad at scoring runs. The lineup hasn’t changed much since then.
Peralta, Marte and Walker are all varying levels of good. The rest of the guys in this lineup shouldn’t scare any of the Padres pitchers.
Expectations
I don’t like to predict sweeps because sweeps are rare, random and somewhat unnecessary. The key for a good team is consistent series victories, and I think the Padres should kick the season off by winning (or, at the very least, splitting) this series against a Diamondbacks team that looks like it is going to have a long and frustrating season this year.