Series Preview: San Diego Padres at Houston Astros
The 1st place Padres (32-19) travel to Houston to take on the 2nd place Astros (27-22) in a matchup of two battered teams trying to keep from falling apart.
There are no days off for the wicked, or something like that, so the exhausted San Diego Padres traveled from Milwaukee to Houston yesterday and are scheduled to play the Cheatin’ Champs® later this evening.
They’ll play three games in Houston’s bandbox before packing up and flying all the way back to Wrigley Field (which is literally a 90 minute drive from where they just were, so this seems especially cruel) for a three game set there.
Let’s break down what is bound to be a weird series against the Astros.
What happened last time they played?
I had initially thought the Padres hadn’t seen the Astros in years, but that’s because when they welcomed them to Petco Park last season they steamrolled them.
The Padres brought a four-game winning streak into the series, and a historic four-game grand slam streak, and left the series with another grand slam (this time, for Jake Cronenworth) and a seven-game winning streak.
It almost didn’t matter who was facing the Padres at that moment. They were so hot, offensively, that they were going to win against anybody. San Diego outscored Houston 22-8 in just three games.
What have they done recently?
After splitting the series with the Brewers, the Padres are still 8-2 in their last 10 games and holding on to a 0.5 game lead atop the NL West.
The Astros are weird. They had won 11 of 13 games, mostly against division opponents, and were streaking towards the top of the AL West after a slow start. Then they got swept by the last place Texas Rangers and took 1 of 2 from the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers.
Houston has been one of the better offensive teams in the league this year, trash cans or not, but they’ve also given up a lot of runs. On certain days and in certain series, one of those things is going to be more prevalent than the other. Right now, it’s going to wrong direction for them. They’re giving up a bunch of runs (29 in their last 5 games) and not scoring a ton (16 in their last 5 games).
Key injuries
Both teams are limping into this one. I’ll save the strange pitching matchups, a result of injuries, for the next section. Let’s just stick with position players here.
Michael Brantley has missed two games due to a leg injury, but the Astros are not putting him on the IL. He could be back.
Yordan Alvarez has been absolutely terrible at the plate recently, and the team finally benched him against the Dodgers due to wrist soreness. He’ll probably be a non-threat until he has adequate time to rest it.
On the Padres side, their IL is starting to get crowded. Trent Grisham is already there, and Austin Nola is set to join him with a sprained knee, and it seems like half the bullpen is over there as well (Drew Pomeranz, Taylor Williams, Keone Kela, Dan Altavilla, Matt Strahm, Adrian Morejon, Mike Clevinger).
No word yet on who will be called up to replace Nola before this series, and we’re still not sure if Manny Machado’s shoulder is feeling well enough for him to play in the field or if he’ll be the team’s designated hitter for the next three games.
Pitching matchups
I could just put a bunch of question marks up for the Astros and it wouldn’t be totally false, but let’s try and figure this out.
Dinelson Lamet vs. Framber Valdez (?)
Valdez will be getting his first start of the 2021 season against the Padres on Friday night, according to Astros reporters, and there’s some reason to be scared. After being a pretty terrible swingman (4.98 FIP) for the team in 2019, he was solid (2.85 FIP) in 10 starts during the shortened 2020 season.
He’s been battling a finger injury this year(which could be a totally made up), but has a sterling 1.29 ERA at triple-A.
On the flip side, Dinelson Lamet’s trajectory should tell you that he’s not ready to go more than 3 innings (max) and he’s pitching in front of a gassed bullpen. I would not be shocked to see an announcement before today’s game that some of these guys are being sent down to El Paso and some fresh arms are being brought in to try and keep things afloat, because they’ll probably need them sooner rather than later.
Yu Darvish vs. Jake Odorizzi (?)
A formerly good starting pitcher in MLB, Jake Odorizzi will reportedly continue to try and find his old form on Saturday against the Padres. He hasn’t pitched in an MLB game in over a month and had an ERA over 10 after three early starts (his last one doesn’t really count, he left after getting a single out due to injury. He posted a 4.70 ERA in two triple-A starts.
Yu Darvish is a mad genius who is having his best season ever, in a long career of great seasons. That’s probably all that needs to be said here except for the fact that he will be thrilled to not have to bat in this one.
Blake Snell vs. Zack Greinke
Speaking of guys trying to find their old form, here’s two of them.
This isn’t the same Zack Greinke who regularly got Cy Young votes and made the all-star team, but he’s not terrible either. After posting an impressive 2.80 FIP last year with the Astros, he’s back to being a league-average starter with a 3.77 FIP this year and an ERA+ of 105.
Snell has been something of a rollercoaster ride for the Padres through two months, occasionally pitching well but overall looking like he’s leaky in some way in each start.
Lineups
Jose Altuve, 2B
Michael Brantley, LF
Alex Bregman, 3B
Yordan Alvarez, DH (?)
Yuli Gurriel, 1B
Carlos Correa, SS
Kyle Tucker, RF
Myles Straw, CF
Martin Maldonaldo, C
Rumors of the Astros demise may have come a bit early. That is still a formidable lineup. They don’t have a lot of good options to replace Alvarez in the lineup at DH, so I’ll be interested to see what they do there.
Tommy Pham, LF
Manny Machado, DH
Jake Cronenworth, 2B
Fernando Tatis Jr., SS
Eric Hosmer, 1B
Wil Myers, RF
Jurickson Profar, CF
Ha-Seong Kim, 3B
Victor Caratini, C
That’s not awesome. At least, this is my guess of what lineup we’ll be getting in this series. The perfect backup catcher has been drafted into the starting lineup and could really use a day off. Manny’s shoulder is a good excuse to get Kim in the field, where he can actually add value.
Expectations
I see this going one of two ways.
1) Several Padres get hot with the lumber (Pham, Machado, Tatis, Myers) and that’s enough to get a series win for San Diego before they head to Chicago. Darvish throws a gem and settles a tired bullpen.
2) The injuries and holes and overall exhaustion are just too much for the Padres. Profar has gaffes in a difficult CF, Kim and Caratini are anemic at the bottom of the order, the bullpen is a bit of a gas can.
It’s difficult to figure which will happen, we’re talking about predicting if the tired guys will play tired or somehow find some energy, so I’ll just say that I don’t see a sweep happening for either team and we’ll leave it at that.