Phillies Padres Preview

Even with this dynamic starting rotation, I think we all knew that sooner or later the Phillies were going to lose a series. Luckily in their past series the Phils avoided being swept and were able to take 1 out of 3 from Milwaukee. This weekend the Phils will look to get back on track when they travel to San Diego to take on the Padres in a 4 game series.

Phillies Last Series

The Phils dropped the first 2 games against the Brewers mainly because the offense struggled greatly. On Monday Joe Blanton pitched a solid game for the Phils pitching 7 innings and giving up just 2 earned runs. But the Phils bats were silent for most of the night and provided very little run support. Going into the 9th inning the Phils trailed 3-2 and were able to send it into extras thanks to an rbi single from Pete Orr to score Carlos Ruiz. The Phils eventually lost it in extras after Kyle Kendrick gave up 3 runs int the top of the 12th. Tuesday was a freak game. Roy Halladay pitched just 6.2 innings and gave up 6 runs on 10 hits. Offensively the Phils were blanked by Randy Wolf and the Brew Crew bull pen. Let's move on to the series finale. In the finale the Phils bats were silent during the early parts of the game but came alive at the end to earn a 4-3 victory. Cliff Lee pitched solid, and the Phils bullpen did a great job of holding the Brewers to 3 runs. Although it was not a particularly great series for the Phils, they did manage to escape with a win and remain in first place in the N.L. East.

Padres Last Series

Like the Phillies the Padres are also coming off a bad series. The Padres dropped 2 out of 3 on the road against the Chicago Cubs and scored just 6 runs in the series, 5 of which came in yesterday in the final game. Defensively the Padres got great outings from Tim Stauffer and Dustin Moseley. Aaron Harang also pitched solid in the series finale pitching 6 inings and giving up just 2 runs to help the Padres win 5-4.

What To Look For

I expect this series to be extremely low scoring. Both teams are struggling at the plate right now and with the pitching match ups scheduled for this series I don't see many runs being scored. Look for Roy Halladay to rebound nicely in the series finale after his bad start on Tuesday. Offensively the Phils scored just 7 runs against the Brewers and need to do a better job of supporting their starters.

Pitching Match Ups

Thursday 10:05 PM Roy Oswalt (2-0, 2.50 ERA) vs Mat Latos (0-2, 5.84 ERA)

Friday 10:05 PM Cole Hamels (1-1, 4.32 ERA) vs Clayton Richard (1-0, 4.50 ERA)

Saturday 8:35 PM Joe Blanton (0-1, 7.27 ERA) vs Tim Stauffer (0-1, 3.27 ERA)

Sunday 4:05 PM TBA