St. Louis @ San Diego preview
Petco Park
Last Meeting ( May 25, 2010 ) St. Louis 0, San Diego 1
May has been a rough month for San Diego Padres pitcher Kevin Correia.
The right-hander has lost all three starts this month and had to deal with a family tragedy when his younger brother, Trevor, fell off a cliff to his death.
Correia will try to get things turned around on the field tonight when he takes the mound against the St. Louis Cardinals in the second game of a three-game series at Petco Park.
He had a solid April and finished the month by winning four consecutive starts. Correia lost to Colorado during his first start in May before learning of the death of his brother the night before a scheduled May 9 start in Houston.
Correia went on the bereavement list and returned to start against the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 15. He lost that outing and again was on the losing end of a decision against the Dodgers five days later.
Suddenly, the promising start to the season has dissolved into a 4-4 record and 4.57 ERA heading into today’s game.
Correia, a 12-game winner last season, has a 1-2 career mark with a 4.28 ERA against St. Louis.
The Cardinals will counter with rookie left-hander Jaime Garcia, who has been a pleasant surprise and is pitching like a man beyond his 23 years.
Garcia has a 4-2 record and scintillating 1.28 ERA that ranks second in the National League behind Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez. He hasn’t allowed more than two earned runs in any of his outings and has allowed one or fewer six times.
Garcia has allowed just 36 hits in 49 1/3 innings and is holding opposing hitters to a .203 batting average.
St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols showed signs of emerging from his May slump by going 3-for-4 on Tuesday.
Pujols has just one homer in the month of May. All three of his hits Tuesday were singles, meaning he has now gone 10 consecutive games without an extra-base hit.
Interestingly, San Diego’s star hitter went in the other direction. Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, the National League’s Player of the Week last week, struck out in all four of his plate appearances Tuesday.
The Padres brought up speedy outfielder Luis Durango prior to the game to make up for the recent losses of outfielders Kyle Blanks (elbow) and Scott Hairston (hamstring).
Blanks and Hairston both went on the disabled list in recent days and both players will miss the rest of the month.
Another San Diego outfielder, Tony Gwynn Jr., is in a 2-for-29 slump and has seen his average fall to .180.