We’ve been hearing about the Padres stacked farm system for a while now. But prospects are just possibilities until they prove it at the big league level.
On Sunday, Eric Lauer proved it (at least for one start).
The rookie lefty made his third Major League start and tossed six shutout innings to help the Padres to a 3-0 win over the Dodgers in the finale of the Mexico Series in Monterrey.
Lauer struck out the side in the first inning then just kind of kept L.A. off balance. He gave up seven hits and the Dodgers had at least one baserunner in every inning but Lauer found a way to strand all of them, throwing a career-high 102 pitches in the process.
Dodgers reliever-turned-starter Ross Stripling, who was pressed into duty because Rich Hill is not ready to return from a cracked fingernail that got infected, shut out the Padres for the first four innings. But in the fifth, he gave way to Tony Cingrani, who gave up a two-run home run to first baseman Eric Hosmer, his second dinger of the series, that put the Padres on top 2-0.
Hosmer also walked twice to push his on-base percentage up over .400 for the season.
The Friars got another run in the seventh on a Franchy Cordero RBI single that scored Travis Jankowski. Closer Brad Hand struck out the side in the ninth to earn his ninth save of the season.
San Diego won a series and back-to-back games for the first time since they took three in a row from the Giants from April 13-15. The Friars come home to start a series against the Washington Nationals and former SDSU star Stephen Strasburg at Petco Park on Monday.
