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Padres Hope To Make Hay In Wild-Card Race Against Twins
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- Padres Hope To Make Hay In Wild-Card Race Against Twins
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect)
The San Diego Padres have returned home after their latest .500 road trip against the Cleveland Guardians and the New York Mets , and they'll be looking to take advantage of the friendly environment at Petco Park to make some headway in the wild-card standings against the Minnesota Twins .
The Padres are still adjusting to the changes they made at the deadline, and that probably partially explains the meh results they got on the trip. They're working in two new starters in Casey Mize and Robbie Ray , and both are starting to find their footing in what the Padres hope will be a strong stretch run.
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They'll send a familiar name to the mound against the Twins tonight, however, as Randy Vasquez will square off against Connor Prielipp for Minnesota. Vasquez had a rough go against Cleveland in his last start as he gave up four earned runs in five innings in what became a 6-1 Guardians win, but before that Vasquez had three outings in which he gave up a total of just two earned runs.
Length may be an issue for Vasquez in this one, as the Padres have been using a mix-and-match approach with some of their pitchers now that they actually have two many starters. It's a good problem for manager Craig Stammen to have, though, as he's been able to rest a bullpen that had been running on fumes for a while.
The Padres will also be looking to reignite the offense, which stumbled badly after some good games in Cleveland. The lone exception in New York was the Fernando Tatis Jr. game, as Tatis singlehandedly powered the Padres to a 5-2 win in the middle game of the three-game set. Other than that they went quietly, so that needs to change tonight.
The Twins come into this one in an odd position indeed. They're two games under .500 at 63-65, but they're also in second place in the AL Central, which is full of staggering teams pretending they're in a pennant race heading into September.
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Prielipp is a good candidate to supply the Padres with a comeback opportunity. He gave up eight runs in his last effort against the Philadelphia Phillies , and three runs each in his two starts before that. San Diego needs to look at this series as an opportunity to put a beatdown on a sub.500 team and enhance their own playoff prospects while doing that.
