Arizona’s Mitch Bratt stymied the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, and the Diamondbacks will hand the ball to another rookie left-hander when they go for a series victory on Thursday in Phoenix.
The Padres had only one hit in seven scoreless innings in a 10-4 loss Wednesday against Bratt, who had a career-high nine strikeouts in his sixth major league start.
Even less-experienced Kohl Drake (0-0, 4.85 ERA) will make his fourth career start in the final contest of the four-game series. The Padres will counter with veteran Walker Buehler (6-5, 5.18).
“Our objective is to win every series we play,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. “We have an opportunity to do that tomorrow, and we cannot let off of the gas pedal. That team is going to be very motivated over there.”
None of the first three clashes have been particularly close — Arizona won the series opener, 5-1, and the Padres took the second game in the set, 9-4. Tim Tawa has homered in both Arizona wins and has three of his six homers this season against the Padres.
“Our team is a bounce-back team,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “Whether it goes well for us tomorrow or not, we’ll continue to bounce back, continue to show up with the right attitude, the right energy and give the right effort.”
Arizona presumably will have Ketel Marte and Nolan Arenado, two of.their leading home-run hitters, back in the lineup for the series finale. Marte (19 homers) and Arenado (16) were given a day off Wednesday.
“They were, in my opinion, right at that point where their body was starting to say, ‘It’s time,'” Lovullo said. “I feel very good about the understudies coming in and getting the job done.”
Arizona (61-54) leads the season series 5-4 as the teams battle for a wild-card spot. San Diego (59-56) hosts the D-backs in a three-game set to close the season.
The Diamondbacks currently are in wild-card position. The Padres sit two games out for one of three wild cards. The two teams will conclude their season series when Arizona travels to San Diego
Buehler has scuffled since beating his former team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, on June 26 in a 7-1 game.
He has given up 27 earned runs and 18 walks in 26 1/3 innings in his past six starts, and he has not made it through the sixth inning in any of them. Included was an 8-0 loss to the Diamondbacks on July 6, when he gave up seven runs and two homers in five innings.
The Padres have won Buehler’s four most recent starts despite those numbers, and he has gotten into the sixth in two of his past three.
Following injuries, Buehler is not the same pitcher he was with Los Angeles, where he won two World Series rings and was a two-time All-Star. He was 46-16 in his first five seasons with the Dodgers.
“That’s my job now — keep us in games,” Buehler told the San Diego Union-Tribune after giving up three runs (two earned) in 5 1/3 innings of a 5-3 win over the Miami Marlins on July 26.
“I think there is a part of it that you have to start going, ‘OK, I’m not trying to throw seven shutout (innings) every day.’ I’m trying to enjoy these ones and team wins and kind of take some of the performance stuff out of it a little bit.”
Buehler is 7-1 with a 2.59 ERA in 15 appearances (14 starts) against the Diamondbacks, with the lone loss coming this season. He allowed seven runs in five innings of an 8-0 loss on July 6 in that one.
Drake has thrown 13 total innings in his three starts. He gave up five hits and two runs in four innings of his last outing, a no-decision in a 12-8 victory at Cleveland on Saturday.
He scuffled at Triple-A Reno, going 3-5 with a 6.92 ERA in 16 starts.
–Field Level Media
