The San Diego Padres host the Los Angeles Dodgers beginning tonight. San Diego has yet to play a juggernaut offense like Los Angeles in 2019.
To start the season the San Diego Padres pitching staff has outperformed its expectations, but it will be tested. Eric Lauer will start for the Padres in Game One tonight. Lauer is 2-3 with a 4.41 ERA in six starts.
He got unlucky because he gets the duty of going up against Clayton Kershaw who seems to have found a groove. Joey Lucchesi will start for the Friars in Game 2 and will line up against Rich Hill.
Lucchesi will need to bounce back from his last start in which he was given a 6-0 lead but struggled against the Nationals, and the Padres went from having a 6-Tun advantage to a walk-off loss off the bat of Matt Adams.
In the final game of the three-game set, it will be Rookie Nick Margevicius toeing the rubber for San Diego against Kenya Maeda.
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It will be the Padres’ toughest task so far this season because the youngest rotation in the game will be facing arguably the best offense in the league.
The Dodgers offense is of course led by Cody Bellinger, who is tied for the league lead in homers with 14.
Lauer will need to set the tone for the series by pitching Bellinger down and away because a majority of Bellinger’s home runs have come from pitches to the inside part of the plate.
Bellinger has 38 RBI’s and just 16 strikeouts so the Padres can’t try to strike him out because he has been making contact at a high rate in the first month of the season.
When Bellinger gets deeper into counts he actually has been hitting better. On 3-2 counts this year his batting average is .643, so San Diego will need to get him to swing early in counts if they want to have success this weekend.
The other hitter they need to stay away from is Kike Hernandez.
He has a .348 on-base percentage with 17 RBI’s and 17 runs scored, so if he gets on base, there is a good chance he will score.
Andy Green also needs to manage the bullpen well. They just got finished with a series in Atlanta where he used mostly long relief guys like Robbie Erlin and Luis Perdomo, so the bullpen should be good to go tonight.
The key will be to not overuse Craig Stammen. He has used him back to back nights multiple times this season, and the more he pitched the worse his numbers are.
It will be a test for the San Diego Padres, especially without a key offensive guy like Fernando Tatis Jr., but if they are smart about they pitch to Bellinger and Kike Hernandez along with run production from the top of the order, they will be able to win the series.