The San Diego Padres haven't yet recovered from the late-season resurgence of the San Francisco Giants in 2010, when the Giants caught a hot streak and rode it past the division-leading Padres to the playoffs and, eventually, a World Series Championship. Now both teams are moving in opposite directions, as the Padres sit at fourth place in the NL West division, while the defending champs sit atop it, three games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
San Diego, to their credit, has sort of picked up the slack lately, as they're winners in eight of their last eleven outings. Still ten games back of the Giants, a good opportunity to improve on their position awaits with a four-game set at AT&T Park. As it happens, the two teams are doing pretty similarly, as the Giants have also won eight of their last eleven, and both teams suffered a loss in their most recent outings: the Giants failing to secure a sweep of the Cubs in a 5-2 loss and the Padres failing to secure a series victory in a 3-1 loss to the Mariners.
The Giants will be sending the top of the order (sans the injured Jonathan Sanchez), as ace Tim Lincecum will take the mound in game one, followed by Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner and Barry Zito. Zito will continue to be evaluated with a close eye, but he's impressed thus far since returning from an injury. Maybe Sanchez will come back in similar impressive form ... one can only hope.
Clayton Richard will face Lincecum in game one, followed by Tim Stauffer, Dustin Moseley and Cory Luebke.
Current Series
4 game series vs Padres @ AT&T Park
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San Diego Padres Monday, Jul 4, 2011, 2:05 PM PDT Clayton Richard vs Tim Lincecum Partly cloudy. Winds blowing out to center field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 70.
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| Tue 07/05 - Matt Cain vs. Tim Stauffer | 7:15 PM PDT | |
| Wed 07/06 - Madison Bumgarner vs. Dustin Moseley | 7:15 PM PDT | |
| Thu 07/07 - Barry Zito vs. Cory Luebke | 7:15 PM PDT | |
