Not The Pitching Too ...

The Padres lost again last night to the Brewers, this time 8-6 in a game that at one point the Brewers led 8-0.

Small consolation.

Still, if the Padres win this afternoon, they'll be at .500 for the month, and no worse than 6 games back of first. That's not bad considering they have the worst hitting in the league. Nor is it bad considering their starting pitching, one of the team's few strengths in April, has been up and down this month.

Let's look at the starters numbers through the first 10 days of May (April ERA in parens):

Aaron Harang: 1-1 4.50 (3.90)
Tim Stauffer: 0-0 0.00 (3.12)
Dustin Moseley: 1-1 3.75 (1.99)
Clayton Richard: 0-2 8.64 (3.82)
Mat Latos: 0-1 4.63 (4.98)

After today every starter will have made two starts this month. But other than Tim's choice start against the DBacks last Friday, none of the guys has improved on his April numbers (Mat's middling improvement can hardly be counted). Aaron had a good start against the DBacks on Sunday, but that has to be paired with a disastrous outing against Pittsburgh on May 2. Moseley likewise had a great outing on May 1 against the Dadgers, only to be rocked Saturday against Arizona. And Clayton has been just bad, albeit the victim of some poor defense in his May 4 start against the Buccos.

If this up-and-down trend continues, Tim may be due for a dicey performance today. But I hope that doesn't happen.

How's that for an inspirational pregame speech?