Immediately following the All Star break the Padres will always have a long road trip, and for good reason. It's Comic-Con week and let's face it, there is no room for a Major League Baseball team during the greatest popular culture event of the year.
But, this year the 10 day, nine game roadie is especially tough. The Padres start with three in Cleveland against the 1st place Guardians and end with three in Baltimore against the 1st place Orioles (with three against the Nationals sandwiched in the middle). The opener of the trip was not pleasant.
Despite a stellar start from the knuckleballing Matt Waldron, the Friars got ripped 7-0 thanks to a punchless offense and a bullpen that is going to need to be addressed ahead of the MLB trade deadline. Waldron tossed 6.0 innings of 1-run ball with five strikeouts and no walks, arguably his best outing of the season. But, he took the loss because the San Diego offense only had four total hits, two each by Luis Arraez and Jake Cronenworth.
It was still a 1-0 game in the 8th inning when Stephen Kolek took the mound. He's had a pattern of fantastic outings followed by awful ones. This was the latter. Kolek allowed four straight singles before being pulled for Austin Davis ... who promptly hit Josh Naylor with a pitch and walked David Fry with the bases loaded. Davis was only able to get one out and gave up two runs without allowing a single hit. Sean Reynolds came on to get the last two outs but by then Cleveland had six runs on the board and it was over.
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The Padres fall to an even 50-50 on the season. They try to even the series, and avoid falling back under .500, on Saturday with Dylan Cease on the bump against Gavin Williams.
