San Francisco Giants (40-50) vs San Diego Padres (41-51)
It is almost hard to believe, but with their loss to the New York Mets today, San Francisco has sunk all the way to last in the National League West.
Thursday July 11
PetCo Park – San Diego, CA
10:10PM
Probable Starters:
SF: Madison Bumgarner (L)
SD: Jason Marquis (R)
Moneyline: San Francisco -130, San Diego +120
O/U: 7
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San Francisco
The Mets swept them as visitors and now they hope to regain some measure of confidence on a trip to San Diego against the equally struggling Padres.
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It is hard to believe this is the same team that won the World Series last year as the pitching is in the bottom half of the league. At the plate only the Miami Marlins have hit fewer home runs than the Giants and they have been wasting the hot hitting of C Buster Posey.
Lefty Madison Bumgarner has been on a pretty good roll lately. He has thrown exactly 7 innings in each of his last 5 starts and the Giants are 4-1 in those contests. Over that span he has not given up more than 2ER in any start and has struckout more than the walked each time.
Also included in that stretch was a victory over San Diego which improved his career record over the Padres to 5-3. Bumgarner has been the best starter for the Giants all season long and they need him to get this division series heading into the All-Star break off to a good start.
San Diego
San Diego lost the final game against Colorado and must be glad to welcome the Giants who are struggling just as much as they are. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]
These teams are tied at 6.5 games behind division leader Arizona but the way things have gone in the NL West no team is really out of it yet. In the season series between these two teams the home team is 8-1 so it could be the Padres chance to get up on San Francisco this weekend.
The key will be getting off to a good start in the opener against the Giants best starter. If they can win it will give them more confidence for the rest of the series. As they showed on their mini run in June confidence is everything for this mildly talented club.
It is no surprise that as the Padres have struggled so has starter Jason Marquis. San Diego has lost his last three starts and Marquis has been struggling mightily with his control. He is the worst in the Majors in terms of offering up free passes and it really isn’t that close (teammate Edinson Volquez is keeping him company near the top).
With his fading stuff he really can’t afford to be putting so many guys on base. Marquis may have a nice record but he is doing it more with guile right now and that may not be sustainable.
Both teams are struggling but all the evidence says to go with the Padres. Home teams have cleaned up in this series and there is no valid reason to think that is going to change in this series. The Giants do have more star power to lately it hasn’t done much for them. It may be hard to name the players in the Padres lineup but they can get the job done tonight.
O/U Pick: Over
Score Prediction: San Diego 5 – San Francisco 4
