This story was originally published by Dead Spin
Staring at elimination in the National League wild-card race, the San Francisco Giants get a chance to impede the postseason push of a fellow NL West club when they open a three-game home series against the San Diego Padres on Friday night.
The Giants (72-75) fell 8 1/2 games out of the final NL wild-card spot following a 3-0 home loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday night. San Francisco has just 15 games remaining.
Six of those games — including three in the final week of the regular season at Arizona — will be against NL West rivals currently in wild-card position. The Diamondbacks (82-64) have the best record among the wild-card hopefuls, with the Padres (82-65) just a half-game behind.
The Giants hurt the Padres’ chances by taking two of three in San Diego last week. San Diego then split a pair against Seattle and enters this series well rested, having had both Monday and Thursday off.
The pitching matchup in the opener is a rematch of last Saturday’s 6-3 Giants’ win, a game in which San Francisco right-hander Logan Webb (12-9, 3.46 ERA) outdueled Padres righty Dylan Cease (12-11, 3.71).
Both teams should be plenty familiar with the opponent’s starter. Webb has faced the Padres three times this season, with the Giants going 2-1. Cease likewise has gone head-to-head with the Giants three times this year, with the Padres losing all three, including 9-6 at home and 3-2 at San Francisco in Cease’s first two starts of the season.
In his career, Cease is 2-2 with an ERA of 3.38 in five starts against the Giants.
Webb won his head-to-head with Cease last week despite allowing three runs and 10 hits in six innings. The 27-year-old has gone 4-2 with a 2.70 ERA in his career against the Padres in 13 appearances, including 12 starts.
Webb will renew a rivalry with Padres slugger Manny Machado, who went 2-for-3 against the hurler last week to improve his lifetime batting average against the 2024 All-Star to .333 (10-for-30).
Machado arrives in San Francisco having been honored twice this week, once as the Padres’ nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award and also for having overtaken Nate Colbert to become the franchise’s all-time home run leader.
“Congratulations to Manny on a couple of fronts,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “Not only the franchise record for home runs … I get the privilege of watching him behind the scenes and how good he is, especially with kids. He just does a lot of things for our community. Well deserved. I hope he wins the whole thing.”
Cease allowed four runs in his six innings in last Saturday’s loss to the Giants. The 28-year-old has made five career starts against the Giants, going 2-2 with a 3.38 ERA.
Three of the four runs Cease served up to San Francisco last week came via a home run by Grant McCray, who had two homers and five RBIs in the win.
McCray has since gone 1-for-17. The Giants had only a total of nine hits in the two losses in their just completed series against the Brewers, sandwiching a 13-run eruption in the middle game for their lone victory.
The Giants also lost their top hitter, shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald, during Thursday’s game when he had to be replaced in the third inning because of soreness in his lower back. His situation will be reassessed prior to Friday’s first pitch.
“He was a bit sore coming in,” Giants manager Bob Melvin reported. “The at-bat was OK, but when he was in the field running and throwing, it was a little bit more of an issue. For him to have to come out, it was biting pretty good.”
-Field Level Media
