The San Diego Padres are in grave danger of missing the postseason thanks to their stretch of 10-25 since Aug. 11, but they could get a good start from Yu Darvish at home Thursday against the San Francisco Giants.
Darvish pitched seven scoreless innings in his last start, against the St. Louis Cardinals, before the bullpen gave up a two-run lead. The Padres are 2-8 in his last 10 starts. Darvish had allowed at least four runs in eight of his past 11 starts, with a 7.67 ERA and 17 home runs surrendered across 54 innings in that span.
The Giants will counter with Logan Webb, who has allowed two runs or fewer in 15 of his last 17 starts. San Francisco is 16-1 in those starts, with Webb posting a 1.97 ERA and allowing six home runs in 100¹/₃ innings.
The Padres had MLB’s best bullpen ERA at the beginning of August, but entered Wednesday third-worst over the last 30 days (5.49). The Giants have MLB’s third-best bullpen ERA in that span, and for the season they have the best team ERA (3.05).
San Francisco leads the majors in home runs per road game (1.68) and San Diego is scoring the fewest runs per game of any NL team since the start of August, so the Giants will put another dagger in the Padres’ playoff hopes on Thursday.
The play: Giants, -105.