Padres: Making Opposing Pitchers Look Really Really Good

The Padres lost again yesterday 3-1 to the Phillies. So despite having the best ERA in the National League, they are 6.5 games back in the NL West and haven't won back-to-back games since the first two games of the season.

The reason, of course, for the Padres poor win-loss record is their shameful hitting. Facing Roy Halladay yesterday, probably the best pitcher in baseball, the woes continued. Doc K'd 14 Padres and generally made the hitters look foolish. Even so, because Wade LeBlanc and other Padres pitchers are so quality, the game was there for the taking in the 9th, but once again the team couldn't get a big hit when it was needed.

It should surprise no one that 5 of the top 12 individual pitching performances in the NL this season have come against the Padres. There was Jaime Garcia on April 3 (86 game score), Tim Lincecum on April 6 (80), Carlos Zambrano on April 18 (85), Cole Hamels on April 22 (79), and Roy Halladay (83) yesterday afternoon. No question these are all good pitchers, including in Lincecum and Halladay perhaps the two best overall pitchers in baseball, but that is not a statistic the Padres should be proud of.

With Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens, and Tommy Hanson all slated to face the Padres at Petco in the next three days, I don't see how this gets turned around anytime soon.