The Padres struggled out of the game in the second half and the Dodgers won all of their games to push the Padres into second place, a game down of the first place Dodgers. Even in the one win, the Padres didn’t put up a ton of runs as the offensive struggles. The Padres have scored more then four runs just once in the month of July.
Justin Germano came up big yesterday though. He held the Diamondbacks scoreless in 6 1/3 and the pen finished up the shutout. Germano is continuing his push to win Rookie of the Year and if he keeps pitching like he did on Sunday, he has a solid chance.
Milton Bradley looks like he could be a solid pickup. He has hits in his first four games as a Padre and I know he comes with attitude problems, but if he rakes, I think that covers a lot of the problems. There’s always the injury concerns, but I remember seeing Bradley carry the A’s in the ALCS. I know A’s were swept in that series, but Bradley was one of the only guys to keep the A’s in a lot of the games.
Adrian Gonzalez’s slide has been disconcerting. In June, his OPS was just .720 and in July, it’s even worse at .427. His last homerun came on June 17th and in the past two months, he has just four long balls. An odd stat in his splits page is how Gonzalez is so much better in the day (1.016 OPS) then he is during the night (.718 OPS).
Jake Peavy makes his first start of the second half as he continues his run towards a Cy Young. He faces Orlando Hernandez tomorrow. Tonight’s matchup has David Wells going up against Jorge Sosa.