Padres 6, Giants 3

Finally, a win for Blake Snell. That's a rarity for him, back-to-back quality starts, and against L.A. and San Francisco, no less. Six innings, 11 strikeouts, one run. Looking at Snell, there's no denying how good his stuff is. Breaking pitch, fastball, changeup. Challenge, Blake, challenge. Don't nibble and wait for the ump to give you the call, or you'll be sitting at 100 pitches after five like you usually do. Snell can be an asset on this team, but that needs to happen in a hurry, like before the trade deadline.

Then there is Nick Martinez, who now specializes in the three-inning save. With a six-man rotation, he is the odd man out, at least until we lose one of our starters to injury...unlikely with our pitchers getting five days of rest. So Nick comes in as a starter, gives us quality innings, then pitches three innings per outing to give the bullpen a much-needed rest. Aside from Musgrove, Martinez might very well be our MVP on our pitching staff.

The MVP on the field is Manny, of course. His three-run dinger in the first was a huge boost. To be fair to Snell, I don't recall the last time he received three runs of run support in any inning, let alone the first. That homer helped Snell settle in and deal. That's six runs in one game, and something as rare as an August rain in San Diego. This was also the first time in a long time that we touched up their starter, Sam Long, who didn't make it out of the third. All starting pitchers have been dominating us, period. Sam Long, though, is not a starter per se, more an opener, so there's an asterisk. I don't think he's ever pitched more than four innings in any of his outings. At some time, this batting lineup will have to come through against a real starter. Carlos Rodon, for example, the Giants pitcher tonight, will be a tough nut to crack, so Darvish will have to throw up some goose eggs. I predict tonight's game will have no more than five runs. 

We need one more game from this series before we need to man up and play Colorado, who can't wait to stick it to us again. Every win is sweet in this league, even more so against L.A. and San Francisco.