Know Your Foe #42: Battle For the Basement Continues Against Padres

Over the past month or so, we've seen the Rockies really start to turn their season around. Obviously not to the point of legitimate contention, but at least to the point of respectability. Losing 100 games is no longer an inevitability. The young pitching seems to be turning corners (until they take a step backwards). The bats are coming through, etc. You know, the narrative of a young team starting to put it all together

Watching this, you'd expect that the Rockies were on their way out of the cellar, about to leapfrog the hapless Padres, right?

Wrong.

You see, the Padres are 9-1 in their past 10 games. In fact, they are 26-18 in the 2nd half, a far cry from Colorado's 20-23 record during the same timeframe.

But before we go bananas over the Padres, check out their play in the last 30 days (excluding Wednesday's games): SD = 17-13, COL = 16-14. While the Padres are 16-10 in August, the Rockies are 16-11, and are pacing well. Colorado's not gaining any ground on SD, per se, but I think it's fair that we're going to see a really decent series this weekend at Coors.

Over the past 30 days, the Padres have been KILLING the baseball. Will Venable and Chase Headley both have a wRC+ above 170 during that span, and Yonder Alonso, The Carlos Quentin, and Chris Denorfia are all above 125. Cameron Maybin is treading water at 104 wRC+, an improvement on his season-long 85 wRC+.

The funny thing is that their rotation has been either lights out or awful. Eric Stults and Clayton Richard both are sporting ERAs over the past 30 days somewhere around 2 and Casey Kelly (part of the original Adrian Gonzalez deal) had 6 shutout innings a couple of days ago. But out of the remaining Edinson Volquez, Ross Ohlendorf, and Jason Marquis, only Marquis has an even passable ERA (5.12 with an unfriendly FIP split). Volquez is nearly at 8.00 and Ohlendorf, well, he's pitched 13 innings combined in his past 4 stars to the tune of a 15.23 ERA. Yep.

Of course, the Padres still work their dark magic and produce strong relievers from the ocean sediment, and of course Huston Street still has an ERA below 1. We don't tolerate dark magic here in Colorado.

Padres Notes: Street, Thatcher Set to Rejoin Club - MLB Daily Dish
Oh, and Street has been on the 15-day for like half of the month, and he's coming back, along with Joe Thatcher. DARK MAGIC I TELLS YA.

Seriously though, just beat them, Rockies. Just do it. You just took 2 of 3 from the Almighty Dodgers, let's start chipping away at that 6 game deficit and crawl out of last. I want to not finish last so badly, let's make this happen. Do it for me. Do it for the Gipper. Do it for Randolph Scott.

Expected Starters

Friday, August 31, 6:40PM MT

Clayton Richard vs Alex White

Saturday, September 1, 6:10PM MT

Edinson Volquez vs Jhoulys Chacin

Sunday, September 2, 1:10PM MT

Casey Kelly vs Jeff Francis