San Diego Padres fall to San Francisco Giants 1-3 as Andrew Werner struggles - MLB Update
Starter Andrew Werner struggles to stop hits as the San Diego Padres fall to San Francisco Giants 1-3 at Petco Park, San Diego, California on September 28, 2012 in the first game of the three match series.
Padres’ offence was ordinary in the game as they struck only seven hits. What was even worse was the fact that they failed to strike when doing so was needed the most. When runners stand at the bases, batters have an ideal opportunity to add to their RBIs
total by sending them aboard.
However, the Padres were unimpressive in this regard.
In contrast to Padres, Giants’ batters stepped up when runners manned the bases and as a result they outscored them.
Given the fact that the Giant’s lead was not enough, the Padres may have blown it.
However, the fact they lacked resilience and thus the power to fight back made the defeat an inevitable outcome for them.
Andrew Werner was far from satisfactory in little more than four innings that he completed. He yielded eight hits and gave up three runs. In turn he suffered the loss.
Werner acknowledges that he struggled to keep the batters from striking hits. He says whenever he leaks hits in such a manner he is going to be in trouble more often than not.
"I was battling," Werner said. "Two of the five innings, I gave up leadoff triples. Any time you do that, you're going to be in a hole."
The sole run they managed in the game came off through a single by first baseman Yonder Alonso.
Other than Alonso, most of the Padres’ hitters battled hard at the plate and barely found connections. Their inability to see contributions from more players cost them the game.
Unless they improve in this area, beating the Giants in the next two matches will require a miracle that comes once in a blue moon.
Thus, the Padres cannot afford to repeat mistakes. They will be working on making sure that they produce hits when runners are in the scoring position.
As far as their pitchers were concerned, they can be fairly satisfied with the performance of relievers.
It will be interesting to observe the change in their strategy in the next game.
Tags: