Milwaukee @ San Diego preview
Petco Park
Last Meeting ( Mar 26, 2010 ) San Diego 9, Milwaukee 4
It looks like the Milwaukee Brewers will be without their second and third-best hitters when they face the San Diego Padres on Thursday.
Third baseman Casey McGehee is expected to miss the next few games due to his wife expecting the birth of their first child and center fielder Jim Edmonds is questionable after hurting his back sliding into home plate yesterday.
McGehee is hitting .321 this season and Edmonds is hitting .298.
All this would normally be very bad for a team that has won just one of its past six games. But it’s especially bad for a Brewers club that now is on the road to face one of the hottest clubs in baseball.
The Padres have won 10 of their past 12 games and seem to be getting better with every outing. They collected two of three victories against the Florida Marlins this week and manager Bud Black praised every element of his team after the wins.
Starting pitching. The bullpen. Hitting. Even speed on offense and defense.
And you definitely don’t want to look to be pulling off a late-inning come-from-behind victory against San Diego right now. Closer Luke Gregerson has retired a franchise-record 26 straight hitters going back to mid-April and 12 of those came on strikeouts.
It’s a luxury Brewers would kill to have after their starter Trevor Hoffman just blew his third start in six chances. Starting pitching hasn’t been a whole lot better for the Brew Crew either, who send Doug Davis to the mound tonight. Davis has an ERA of 8.35 and about the only good news about that is the fact the Padres are hitting just .203 against lefties this season.
San Diego sends a lefty of its own to the bump tonight with Wade Leblanc. Leblanc has allowed just one earned run in 11 innings so far this season in victories over Cincinnati and Arizona.
The 25-year-old southpaw is making his first career start against the Brewers.