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Padres a study of contrasts as series with A’s closes
San Diego Padres manager Craig Stammen cracked a joke about a lack of hitting on Saturday night, when his team managed only two hits in a 2-0 shutout of the visiting Athletics.
“If you want to put it into football terms, we got our safety and got out of there,” he said.
Stammen will hope for a bit more offense from his team, as well as a series sweep, on Sunday afternoon when the Padres wrap up their weekend series against the A’s.
All jokes aside, winning without much offense has been the norm for San Diego much of this season. The Padres are last in the majors in batting average (.219) and are tied for last with San Francisco in on-base percentage (.293). San Diego stands 27th in slugging percentage (.365) and 24th in runs (209).
Yet the Padres are 11 games over .500 and have won six of their past eight games, mainly because they seem to score runs when absolutely necessary. And San Diego rarely gives up a late-inning lead because of its high-leverage arms in the bullpen.
Stammen said the Padres will figure things out offensively, citing the eight walks they drew Saturday night as proof they are taking the proper approach at the plate.
“We celebrate the small wins, and if we have enough of those, it’s going to turn into big things,” he said. “Any time we can find a way to hand a lead to our bullpen, it’s a good day for us.”
Having right-hander Michael King (4-2, 2.31 ERA) on the mound typically gives San Diego a chance to win, and he will start against the A’s on Sunday. King excelled in a 1-0 shutout of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, firing seven scoreless innings and allowing just four hits while walking two and striking out nine.
In three career games against the Athletics, two of them starts, King is 1-0 with a 3.75 ERA. The win, 5-4, occurred on April 7, 2025, in West Sacramento, Calif.
Opposing King will be right-hander Luis Medina, who’s 1-1 with a 2.41 ERA in 14 relief appearances. This will be the first start since 2024 for Medina, who fired two scoreless innings Wednesday night at the Los Angeles Angels in a 6-5, 10-inning win for San Diego.
In his only previous game against San Diego, Medina worked 3 2/3 innings of relief in 2023, striking out seven and walking four while allowing two hits and an earned run.
This will likely be a second straight game in which the A’s bullpen does most of the work. J.T. Ginn left after only 2 1/3 innings Saturday night because he had thrown 73 pitches, given up two runs, walked six and hit a batter, forcing relievers to record 17 outs.
The bullpen gave up just two hits during its lengthy stint to keep the Athletics in contention, but the A’s couldn’t come up with timely hits for a second straight game. They were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight runners.
But San Diego did see Nick Kurtz tie Rickey Henderson for the third-longest on-base streak in franchise history. Kurtz’s first-inning single marked the 46th straight game he has reached base. If he makes it 47 on Sunday, he’ll tie Jimmie Foxx for second. Mark McGwire leads with a 62-game streak.
“Every day is a new day for him,” Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said of Kurtz. “He’s not a hitter that chases hits. He’s a hitter that takes what’s given to him.”
–Field Level Media
