Last night, the Padres dropped their third straight game to the Phillies over the season, and are now 216-271 (.444) in franchise history against the Phillies, and 102-141 (.420) in Philadelphia.
On Saturday night, Dinelson Lamet will get the ball for his eighth start since coming back from Tommy John Surgery in April 2018. The 27-year-old right-hander is coming off a start in which he gave up 2 runs on 3 hits in 5 innings against the Rockies. Since July 30, Lamet has seen his ERA drop from 5.09 down to 3.86. His strikeouts per 9 innings has gone up from 10.9 in 2017 to 12.6 this year. Lamet is walking 4.1 hitters every 9 innings, which is greater than the league average, but also lower than he has in his career, where he was walking 4.3 hitters per 9 innings.
Going up against Lamet for Philadelphia is right-hander Zach Eflin. Eflin will be going back to the rotation as he makes his first start in almost a month, replacing Jake Arrieta, who is reportedly done for the season. The 25-year-old starter went to the bullpen and pitched decently, giving up just one run in 5⅔ innings as a reliever. Despite being good out of the bullpen, Zach Eflin still carries a 8.35 earned run average in the past 7 games, in which he’s walked 8 batters and struck out 16 in 18⅓ innings. The Phillies hope to get Eflin back to 2018-form where he had the best season of his career.
| Saturday, August 17, 2019 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Diego Padres | Philadelphia Phillies | |||||
| CF | Margot | .246 | 1B | Hoskins | .241 | |
| LF | Naylor | .254 | RF | Harper | .254 | |
| 3B | Machado | .263 | C | Realmuto | .280 | |
| 1B | Hosmer | .287 | LF | Dickerson | .289 | |
| C | Mejia | .286 | SS | Segura | .282 | |
| RF | Renfroe | .234 | 2B | Hernandez | .284 | |
| 2B | France | .228 | 3B | Kingery | .271 | |
| SS | Urias | .178 | CF | Haseley | .268 | |
| P | Lamet | .000 | P | Eflin | .147 | |
Active Padres hitters are 5-for-16 (.313) against Zach Eflin, including a home run off the bat of Austin Hedges last year. Other players with hits off Eflin in their careers are Eric Hosmer (2-3) and Manny Machado (1-5).
Bryce Harper hit another homer in Friday night’s game for 4 in the last 3 days and 6 in the past 7. In those 7 games, Harper also has a 1.000 slugging percentage. The 26-year-old 330-million dollar man is also a .336/.422/.640 hitter against the Padres in 34 games, including Friday night.
The Padres bullpen gave up 3 more runs in the series opening loss to the Phillies. The San Diego relief core has not been good in 2019, to say the least. They have given up at least one run in 9 of the last 11 games, including 3 blown saves and 4 losses.
The game begins at 4:05 PM P.T. at Citizens Bank Park for the second of a three-game set between the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies. It’s another pair of right-handers starting in Philadelphia. The game is on Fox Sports San Diego and 97.3 The Fan for those in the San Diego-market.
