Chicago @ San Diego preview
Petco Park
Last Meeting ( Sep 27, 2010 ) Chi. Cubs 1, San Diego 0
One night after facing the hottest pitcher in the game, the San Diego Padres will send out a pitcher running on fumes.
Mat Latos starts Tuesday night for the Padres as they host the second of a critical four-game series with the Chicago Cubs.
The Padres ran into a buzzsaw in their 1-0 loss in the opener of this series. Chicago right-hander Carlos Zambrano yielded just three hits over seven scoreless frames to improve to 7-0 with a 1.26 ERA in 10 starts since returning from his suspension. He did not allow a hit after the third inning.
Blake DeWitt provided Zambrano with all the support he needed when he drove in Alfonso Soriano with a base hit in the seventh.
The loss dropped the Padres (87-69) one game behind the San Francisco Giants (88-68) in the NL West with six games to play and one-half game back of the Atlanta Braves (88-69) for the wild card. The Colorado Rockies (83-73) are 4 1/2 games behind Atlanta and five back of San Francisco.
Now, the Padres need Latos (14-8, 2.91 ERA) to snap out of his funk.
The 22-year-old was as hot as Zambrano prior to his last three starts, setting a major-league record with 15 straight starts allowing two runs or less from June 10-Sept. 7. He was 9-1, 1.49 ERA during that stretch.
That pitcher is nowhere to be found right now.
Latos has lost his last three starts, getting pounded for 16 runs and 22 hits in just 10 1/3 innings. In his last appearance Thursday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the 11th-round pick in 2006 made it through five innings, allowing three runs and six hits in a 3-1 loss.
Both the hurler and Padres manager Bud Black insist that injury and fatigue are not issues with Latos, who will have to be near perfect in this one. San Diego hasn’t scored in 16 innings and has just 14 runs in its last six games.
Fatigue might be setting in on Chicago starter Ryan Dempster (14-11, 3.87 ERA). The 33-year-old is coming off the shortest start of his career, allowing nine runs and seven hits while recording just five outs in the 13-0 thrashing against San Francisco on Thursday.
Prior to that embarrassment, Dempster was 10-5 with a 3.30 ERA in his previous 18 starts. The former closer joins Zambrano has the only two pitchers since 1999 to pitch 200 innings in three consecutive innings for the Cubs.