Giants and Padres in National League Postseason Battle

The Giants and Padres are currently deep in the National League postseason struggle, but it isn’t due to a scoring spree.

Both teams have faced challenges in generating runs lately and will feature some underrated pitchers on the mound in San Francisco on Wednesday night.

Back in May, both the Giants and Padres found themselves in the bottom 10 for weighted runs created plus (WRC+) and home runs, which really says something about their offensive performance at that time.

The situation didn’t improve much as June began.

In the first game of their series on Monday, neither team scored through nine innings. It was only after the 10th inning, thanks to the ghost runners due to extra-inning rules, that San Diego finally got on the board, winning the game 1-0.

The Padres will be sending veteran right-hander Nick Pivetta to the mound. With his 2.74 ERA over 11 starts, he leads the Padres in that department and has been striking out about 10.25 batters per nine innings.

He’ll be matched up against Kyle Harrison, who recently returned to the Giants’ starting rotation after some injuries impacted Justin Verlander’s status.

Harrison has been doing well this season, allowing just two runs across nine innings in two starts.

Both bullpens rank among the top five in ERA in the league, making it difficult for either team to score, even if the starting pitchers don’t last long.

Looking Ahead

On the surface, it seems both teams need to improve significantly from their previous month, but Wednesday evenings can often be tough for hitters in certain ballparks.

So, it’s perhaps advisable to consider the under for this matchup.