Indian Summer

Last Wednesday the Padres were 10 games under .500, on their longest winning streak of the season, and making a push to get into third place. No really - we were.  Five games later the Padres have fallen back into the cellar and scored only 4 runs total.

What happened?  Looks like an Indian Summer to me.  After sending Ryan Ludwick to Pittsburgh, the Padres ripped off wins in 14 of their next 22 games, averaging 5.8 runs per game.  Yes that average is padded somewhat by 3 games in which they scored 13+ runs.  However, it was a marked upswing in offensive prowess from the season's first half, and its 15 shutouts, and its 30 other games scoring 2 runs or less.  IUn 41% of their games played through 31 July, they didn't score 3 runs.

Then, three weeks of offensive gluttony.  I briefly entertained hope they would claw their way back to .500 by the end of the season.  Heck, going into the Tim Lincecum start last Wednesday they were within 8 games of second place.

So much for that.

In hindsight I guess we should have seen this coming.  The Padres can't beat Lincecum (8-4 lifetime vs San Diego), they can't beat Clayton Kershaw (6-3 lifetime), and they don't win in Arizona (80-37 all time vs Padres in the desert).

Today Tim Stauffer, recently bitten hard by the HR bug, will take on Hiroki Kuroda.  The Padres have had success against Kuroda in LA, so perhaps their bats will awaken tonight.