SAN DIEGO – The Padres (33-36) and Yu Darvish struggled mightily Friday night against the Tampa Bay Rays (51-22). The Rays currently lead the majors with 51 wins as their hot season continued in San Diego tonight. The Rays had their ace Shane McClanahan who gave up 1 earned run with 5 Ks. Yu Darvish put the team in a tough position to get a win tonight as he gave up 6 earned runs in his 5 innings of work. Half of those runs came off a 402 Foot bomb off the bat of Randy Arozarena. If you remember, the last time Arozarena visited Petco Park, it was during the 2020 ALCS where he was given MVP honors.
In the 7th inning, Nelson Cruz hit a home run to left center field which would make the deficit 5 runs. Despite a 9th-inning rally where the team loaded the bases, the Padres would fall to the Rays in the series opener.
Here are three takeaways from the game:
Inconsistency
The Padres have yet to have a period this season where the team puts multiple games together. The bats this year in particular have been inconsistent not having a single player bat above .290. With runners in scoring position, the team batted .199 coming into the game. That is good for the worst in the majors. If the Padres want to get some kind of consistency it starts there. In the game’s biggest at-bat with the bases loaded and 1 out, Tatis Jr. grounded into a double play. This is one of the team’s flaws that they will have to fix if they want to do anything this season.
Bullpen Stays Hot
The bullpen as of late has been one of the only groups on the team to be consistent. They gave up no runs tonight in 4 innings of play. Ray Kerr made his third appearance of the year and got 2 strikeouts in his inning pitched. Everyone is contributing out of the pen for the Padres right now and that will have to continue.
Starters Need to Be Better
Like the hitters of the Padres, the starting pitching has been inconsistent as well. A job of the starter is to set the tone for the offense. When starters are giving up large amounts of runs the energy is down from the jump. While the pitching staff has been doing well for most of the year, being top 5 in ERA, getting off to a good start can be a good way of setting the tone for the offense.
The Padres and Rays will play in game 2 of a 3-game series tomorrow at 4:15 PST on FOX. Blake Snell will face off against his old ball club while Zach Eflin will be on the bump for the Rays.
