Go f*ck yourself, San Diego (Padres)

SERIES PREVIEW – Cubs @ Padres

Ah, San Diego, which of course in German means a whale’s vagina.

Sorry, my mistake. A Padre is a whale’s vagina, or at least that’s how they play baseball. (I don’t think anyone knows what San Diego means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago.) By record, the Padres aren’t the worst team in baseball, but they do have the worst run differential in all of baseball. By a lot. At -145, the Padres are 19 runs worse than the next closet team (the Royals at -126). They’re one of only four teams to have allowed more than 600 runs this season and the only team that has allowed more than 600 yet has scored less than 500. They are bad, especially on the road.

But they won’t be on the road for their three-game series against the Cubs. And for as bad as the Padres are on the road and at baseball in general, they’ve somehow managed to stay .500 at home (30-30) despite allowing 47 more runs than they’ve scored. In fact, they swept the Cubs in May at PETCO Park. Of course, the Padres were also a .500 ball club at the end of May, still had Jake Peavy and hadn’t conceded their next four seasons. A lot can change in a couple of months.

What hasn’t changed is how bad the Cubs have been on the road. They’re 25-33 away from Wrigley and after a hot July, they’ve simmered back down to lukewarm. But they have a lot of things in their favor heading down the home stretch, starting with this series against San Diego.

• Today is the third game of a stretch that sees the Cubs play 27 of 32 games through September 17 against teams currently below the .500 mark. The lone clubs the Cubs will face in that stretch currently with a winning mark is the four-game series this weekend at Los Angeles and a September 3 make-up game against the White Sox at Wrigley Field.
• The Cubs are in the middle of a 24-day stretch that began July 31 during which they are scheduled to play 17 of 22 games on the road. This run began with a 10-game, 11-day trip through Florida (1-2), Cincinnati (2-1) and Colorado (1-3), continued with a rain-shortened, five-game homestand against Philadelphia (0-3) and Pittsburgh (2-0) and concludes this Sunday with the end of this seven-game West Coast trip.
• After this trip, however, the Cubs are scheduled to play 24 of their final 40 games at Wrigley Field, where the club is 35-22 (.614 winning percentage) the third-best mark in the National League (San Francisco, .661 and Los Angeles, .621).
• Milton Bradley is batting .343 (24-for-70) with a .460 on-base percentage in his last 21 games starting July 22. Overall, he is hitting .313 (26-for-83) in the second half after hitting .243 (51-for-210) prior to the All-Star Break. He has driven in a run in four of his last seven games.



• The Cubs have 70 quality starts this season, tied for third in the majors with Arizona. Colorado and Atlanta lead baseball with 71 quality efforts apiece. Cubs starters are 35-13 (.729) with a 2.27 (117 ER/464.0 IP) when recording a quality start.
• Kevin Correia, Monday’s starter for the Padres, has made six appearances (two starts) against Chicago in his career, going 0-2 with an 11.25 ERA (15 ER/12.0 IP). Tuesday’s starter, Cesar Carrillo, has only one start under his belt, and lasted just 2.1 while allowing eight runs. He’s followed by another rookie, Mat Latos, got roughed up pretty bad in his most recent start, despite success this season.

You stay classy, San Diego.

Series pitching probables:

Monday, 9:05 p.m. — Ted Lilly (9-7, 3.59) vs.  Kevin Correia (8-9, 4.51)
Tuesday, 9:05 p.m. — Ryan Dempster (6-6, 4.23) vs. Cesar Carrillo (0-1, 30.86)
Wednesday, 9:05 p.m. — Randy Wells (9-5, 3.01) vs. RHP Mat Latos (4-2, 4.01)