This might be a bit strong, but for the moment it's accurate: The Padres have the Cardinals number.
The Friars chased their series-opening 9-3 win over St. Louis from Friday night with an 8-0 blowout on Saturday in front of 44,816 fans in the East Village. The Cardinals may have the best record in baseball but for right now they can't seem to solve a team that's a game under .500.
In fact, there is only one National League team with a winning record against the Cardinals this season and plays its home games in San Diego. The Padres are 4-2 so far, with a chance to sweep on Sunday. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
Starting pitcher Ian Kennedy rewarded the Padres for pulling him back from the waiver wire with his best start of the season. Kennedy tossed 6.0 shutout innings, striking out a season-high 10 Cardinals hitters. Five relief pitchers threw the last three innings, adding six more punchouts. The staff had to be good because it was a close game.
Well, until the 7th inning it was a close game. That's when the Padres offense went nuts.
The inning started with San Diego up 1-0. It ended with them leading 8-0. In between they sent 12 hitters to the plate and burned through four Cardinals pitchers. Matt Kemp dealt the first blow with a line drive, bases loaded single to center to score two runs and put the Padres up 3-0. Then Justin Upton doubled to bring in two more runs. A couple of batters later Clint Barmes ripped an RBI double, followed by an Alexi Amarista RBI single. The scoring was capped by rookie Travis Jankowski's infield RBI single.
Jankowski had two more hits, becoming the third player in Padres history to have two hits in each of his first two MLB games. The others were John Sipin in 1969 and Juan Bonilla in 1981.
Local
There was one negative in the game. Catcher Derek Norris suffered a bruised wrist when he was hit on the wrist. X-rays revealed no break but he's going to be day-to-day.
The Padres are now one game over .500 with Pat Murphy as manager. With the Dodgers losing again in Houston, the Pads are now just 6.5 games out of first place in the NL West.
