It's now June and the San Diego Padres still have a losing record. Last night, they dropped Game 2 of their three-game series with the Miami Marlins 2-1 to fall to 25-30.
The loss was on a walk-off and another blown save from Josh Hader, his third this season. This is no longer an early season slump or a slow start, it might be time to hit the panic button in San Diego.
The most all-in team in baseball is in danger of being a seller at the trade deadline. We have two months to go, but today feels like an important series to win against the 29-27 Marlins.
For this rubber match on a Thursday afternoon in Miami, the Padres will hand the ball to Joe Musgrove who is 2-2 with a 5.64 ERA. The Marlins will counter with 4-3 Jesus Luzardo who carries in a 3.67 ERA.
Let's take a look at the odds for the Padres and Marlins Game 3.
Padres vs. Marlins odds, run line and total
Padres vs. Marlins prediction and pick
There is some good news for the Padres, they get to face a left-hander today. The Padres are around league average in OPS against lefties which doesn't sound great, but is much better than 25th which is where they rank against right-handed pitchers.
Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. in particular have crushed lefties. Machado with a .938 and Tatis Jr. with a .999 OPS. However, Juan Soto, their best hitter, has struggled with a .647 OPS in left-on-left situations and Xander Bogaerts has a .594 OPS.
I would not expect San Diego to crush Jesus Luzardo, who despite one rough outing had a very strong month of May. Luzardo does a great job scattering hits which should be easy against the Padres. San Diego is 27th in OPS with runners on base and 24th in RBI.
The San Diego offense has underwhelmed, but so has their pitching staff, especially Joe Musgrove who has given up six home runs in six starts this season.
He bookended May with his two best starts of the season, but had back-to-back four run outings sandwiched between.
Musgrove does have a 3.69 expected ERA, so I could see a strong start from him, but San Diego is an under .500 team and the numbers back up that they are worse than Miami. I'll take the Marlins as home underdogs today.
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change