Marlins at Padres: Game 66 Thread

After a 5-2 victory last night in San Diego, the Marlins are back at it early today with a 3:40PM ET start at Petco Park.

Mattingly's club heads into this matinee with a 5-5 record in their last 10 games, putting a two game win streak in the hands of Justin Nicolino as he takes on the young Luis Pedromo.

Aside from his first start of the season against the Dodgers, Nicolino hasn't surpassed more than six innings pitched, consistently allowing about 2-5 runs per start with minimal strikeouts due to his pitch-to-contact approach. His four pitch mix relies heavily on a four-seam fastball, which carries a -4.8 Pitch/FX value, well below average and what you want to see from a young pitcher. Even with his struggles, Nicolino has still been able to give the Marlins some much needed innings as a back end arm, and hopes to earn his third win of the season today.

2016 hasn't been too kind to the Padre's starter Luis Pedromo, who will make his third start of the season after logging innings as a reliever for the Padres earlier this year. Pedromo is taking Andrew Cashner's spot in the rotation after he went down with neck problems, and hopes to see his 9.50 ERA fall a little bit to his career average in the minor leagues, which lingered around the 5.00 mark as well. Interestingly enough, this 23 year old righty hadn't pitched above High-A ball for the Cardinals, before cracking the big leagues in 2016 with the Padres. Profiling as a reliever for most of his career, the Padres hope he can give them at least five innings per start, even though his struggles may warrant an earlier exit. He'll feature a fastball, slider, and changeup, with heavy reliance on his fastball (60%+ usage) which sits in the 93-95 MPH range.

Notes...

• Pete Rose is doing his best to stay in the limelight, with his comments the other day that in Japan they're trying to make him the hit queen. Rose's ego aside, the bigger story as Mark Grace says in the linked article, is that Ichiro is one hit away from tying Pete Rose's record, with his 2,977 in Japan and 1,278 in Japan. One of the greatest milestones in baseball is being overlooked, and it shouldn't be! Suzuki is batting leadoff today and playing RF in place of Stanton.
• If Stanton were in the Miami lineup today, he would have a nice matchup, facing a pitcher who is better suited to kick around the minor leagues for a while before he develops into what the Padres hope is a viable starter. Stanton was 1-for-3 last night with a double and a walk, just his third extra base hit of the month as he sports a .213 OBP in June. Stanton has also struck out at least once in each of his last 12 games, carrying one of the worst strikeout to walk ratios in all of baseball. I have to say, I think this Stanton slump is more medical than we may have initially thought, as I do not understand Mattingly's reasoning here to sit Stanton against a sub-par starter.
• The moneyline for the Marlins today as the favorite is -114, while the Padres sit at +104. The over/under run total for the game is 9, with the under the greater favorite at -115 at the moment.

Prediction: Marlins pound Pedromo, win 10-4