Entering Friday, the Rockies are sitting 2 games ahead of the Padres in the NL West, with the Padres representing the 2nd worst record in MLB to the Chicago Cubs. Much as making light of their predicament is fun, it should be mentioned that the Padres' pitching has been simply decimated by injury. Right now, the Padres have Anthony Bass and Eric Stults on the 15-day DL, Cory Luebke, Dustin Moseley, Micah Owings, Tim Stauffer, and Joe Weiland on the 60-day DL. That's just the pitching. Add Jason Bartlett, Kyle Blanks, James Darnell, and Jeremy Hermida to that 60-day list, and that's half of an MLB roster injured.
To add insult to injury, the Padres are also the 5th worst batting team in MLB per wRC+ (86), while the Rockies are the 6th best batting team (101).
This isn't to say that NOTHING is going right for the Padres, but the glimmers of hope are few and far between.
Carlos Quentin is finally off of the DL, and he's announcing his presence with authority.
Yeah, welcome back to the land of the living, TCQ. Quentin has been as injury prone as you'd expect a man made of balsa wood would be, but he's back with a vengeance for San Diego. In an admittedly small sample size, Quentin is posting a career-high batting average, BB%, and surprisingly, ISO (SLG-AVG), when you consider he plays for the Padres. He's also striking out at a career-low rate of 12.4%.
Frankly, those numbers surprise me. Not just because of LOLPETCO, but really just how low his career K% is when compared to his career batting average. Usually those low AVG guys walk a lot (which Quentin does) and their power numbers tend to also lead to a lot of strikeouts. Just ask Ian Stewart, Chris Iannetta, and Mark Reynolds.
\While I'm not terribly excited about Carlos Quentin coming to a weekend in high and dry Coors Field and hitting baseballs, I'm also in that camp of "I like to watch good baseball players play baseball good". Nobody likes to watch a player decimated by injury, unless they're racist or something. Which I don't think Carlos Quentin is.
This is an intensely winnable series for Colorado. They put up very strong fights against the Phillies and the Nationals, and now they have 1 of the only 2 teams in the NL that Colorado can still pick on coming into our park. Given the way the bats have been swinging lately, there's no reason that Colorado can't take at LEAST 2 games from the Padres while grabbing them by their wrists and hitting them in the face with their own fists while taunting "Stop hitting yourselves, stop hitting yourselves, stop hitting yourselves". In fact, I think that's the only reason we still have Jason Giambi on the roster.
Probable Starters (or my best guess anyhow, I'm always screwing these things up)
Friday, June 29th at 6:10PM MT
Jason Marquis vs Jeff Francis
Saturday, June 30th at 5:15PM MT
Edinson Volquez vs Christian Friedrich
Sunday, July 1st at 1:10PM MT
Kip Wells vs (It's a Surprise!!!)