On Saturday, the Padres face Phillies ace Roy Halladay. The former Cy Young Award winner has 3 wins this season. It's entirely possible that's how many the Padres will have.
Philadelphia won its 12th straight game at PETCO Park on Thursday night, 2-0 in a game the Padres squandered opportunities on offense and a quality start.
22-year-old rookie Joe Wieland threw a tremendous game. He struck out 7 and allowed just one run in 6 innings. Not bad for a kid making his second career major league start. He deserved to win.
But, his offense let him down because of that pesky thing called "situational hitting."
Jeremy Hermida led off the 2nd inning with a triple, but the Padres failed to get him home. With less than two outs there are several ways to score a runner from 3rd (hit, sacrifice fly, fielder's choice, error to name a few). They're called productive outs, and the Padres haven't been very productive.
"Our guys are going to have to come through at a better rate than what we are now, and I think we will," said manager Bud Black. "We've talked about the situational hitting before. When we have opportunities, we have to cash in, and tonight we didn't."
The Padres fall to 3-11 on the season. They get another shot at snapping Philly's winning streak in their ballpark on Friday night, but they'll have to go through San Diego native Cole Hamels to do it.
