San Francisco @ San Diego preview
Petco Park
Last Meeting ( Sep 10, 2010 ) San Francisco 1, San Diego 0
That nice comfortable lead the San Diego Padres had just 2 1/2 weeks ago has disappeared.
The San Francisco Giants won the first two contests of the pivotal four-game series in San Diego and Friday’s victory moved the Giants into a virtual tie atop the NL West.
The Padres, who are one percentage point ahead of the Giants, aren’t feeling too good entering Saturday’s afternoon contest since they held a 6 1/2-game bulge on Aug. 25.
A 10-game losing streak opened the door for San Francisco and the Colorado Rockies - and both teams have taken advantage. Colorado is just 2 1/2 games out of first after recording its eighth straight victory on Friday.
The winner of Saturday’s game between the Padres and Giants will reside alone in first place. The series concludes Sunday with a duel of aces – San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum against San Diego’s Mat Latos.
San Francisco won Friday’s game by a 1-0 score, one day after hitting four homers in a 7-3 victory over the Padres.
San Diego turns to Tim Stauffer in Saturday’s critical contest. Stauffer is making just his third start of the season - and both of his previous starts were in emergency situations.
Stauffer started on Monday against the Los Angeles Dodgers when Latos was scratched with the flu and he gave up one run and four hits in four innings.
In early May, Stauffer started when Kevin Correia was a late scratch after the tragic death of his younger brother. Stauffer threw five shutout innings against the Houston Astros in that contest.
Stauffer landed Saturday’s start partly because of his solid work against Los Angeles and because Correia and Wade LeBlanc have been struggling in recent weeks.
Stauffer is 3-3 with a 1.72 ERA in 27 appearances this season.
Rookie left-hander Madison Bumgarner (5-4, 3.44 ERA) starts for San Francisco. He has just one victory in his last eight outings despite allowing two runs or less in four of them.
Bumgarner has yielded one run and 10 hits in 13 1/3 innings over his last two outings (against Colorado and Arizona) and took no-decisions both times in games San Francisco eventually won.
Bumgarner also took a no-decision against San Diego on Aug. 14 when he gave up two runs in seven innings.
Giants second baseman Freddy Sanchez went 2-for-4 on Friday and is 5-for-9 in the first two games of the series.
Sanchez has been swinging a hot bat for four weeks. He has 36 hits in his last 89 at-bats and has raised his average from .255 to .291.