The NL West-leading Padres are in for a dog fight on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Houston Astros at San Diego Padres<\/strong><\/p>\n Houston left Milwaukee with a 5-1 victory on Wednesday afternoon, securing the team\u2019s first month this season in which it didn\u2019t finish at least six games under .500.\u00a0 The Astros also moved its winning streak to nine straight on Wednesday\u2019s this season.\u00a0 \u201cIt seems like we\u2019re playing better baseball,\u201d reliever Brandon Lyon said after the game.\u00a0 Houston crossed over the magic four-run barrier against the Brewers, moving its record to 27-11 when scoring four or more runs, which might be tough to do against the league\u2019s best pitching staff coming up.\u00a0 The Astros are 21-39 against right-handed starters (-940), with the team facing southpaws just 18 times (9-9).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Astros starting pitcher Brian Moehler is 1-4 with a 5.63 ERA in 18 outings (six starts) this season.\u00a0 All six of those starts have come since taking Ben Norris\u2018 spot in the rotation on May 29.\u00a0 The right-hander has a losing 1-2 record and 6.75 ERA on the road, issuing 16 walks and striking out just 11 over 24 innings.\u00a0 He happened to pick up his only victory of the year last time out, allowing three runs (two earned) runs and eight hits over five innings in a 7-4 road victory over the Texas Rangers.\u00a0 In nine career outings (five starts) against the Padres, he has produced a 2-1 mark and 3.18 ERA.\u00a0 He happens to be a perfect 2-0 with a 2.63 ERA in three appearances (two starts) at Petco Park.<\/p>\n San Diego drilled the Colorado Rockies by a score of 13-3 in the series finale at Petco Park, with every player in the lineup recording at least a single hit.\u00a0 \u201cAs soon as we came into the clubhouse after the win we were screaming, \u2018same lineup,\u2019 said Jerry Hairston Jr.\u00a0 Even though the Padres home park is known as a pitcher\u2019s paradise, the Friars have managed to score 13 or more runs for the third time at home this season.\u00a0 With the win, the Padres avoided losing three straight games for just the second time this season (LAD: 5\/14-16).\u00a0 The club also finished the month with a 15-12 record, its fifth straight winning month, dating back to 2009.<\/p>\n Padres starting pitcher Jon Garland is 8-5 with a 3.13 ERA in 16 starts this season, including back-to-back victories in his last two starts.\u00a0 In those games against Baltimore and Florida, he allowed five earned runs and nine hits over 12.2 innings.\u00a0 The right-hander brings a 4-1 record and 2.34 ERA to the table in eight home starts, even though he\u2019s issued 25 walks and struck out just 29.\u00a0 His home ERA ranks 10th in Major League Baseball and sixth in the National League.\u00a0 Garland will be making his seventh career start against the Astros, producing a 3-1 record and 3.00 ERA.\u00a0 He made an earlier start this year at Minute Maid Park, picking up a 2-1 road victory while tossing seven shutout innings.<\/p>\n Bettors beware, as a dangerous underdog is in play.\u00a0 The Astros are just a game under .500 in this spot as a road underdog of +175 to +200 (+320).\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that the total is 3-8 O\/U in those games as well.\u00a0 San Diego checks in as a home favorite of -200 to -225 for the first time this season – Look out below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NL West-leading Padres are in for a dog fight on Thursday night. Houston Astros at San Diego Padres Houston left Milwaukee with a 5-1 victory on Wednesday afternoon, securing the team\u2019s first month this season in which it didn\u2019t finish at least six games under .500.\u00a0 The Astros also moved its winning streak to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2074,1039,1098,1605,891,2075],"class_list":["post-5145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-brian-moehler","tag-houston-astros","tag-jon-garland","tag-petco-park","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-underdog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5146,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5145\/revisions\/5146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}