Gameday Preview: Rays Look to Extend Winning Streak Saturday vs. Padres
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SAN DIEGO, Calif. — The Tampa Bay Rays have been playing some nice baseball lately, winning three straight games on this West Coast road trip. They have a chance to make it a season-high four straight wins on Saturday against the first-place San Diego Padres.
Ryan Pepiot will make the start for the Rays as they begin their sixth trip of the season through the starting rotation. Pepiot know runs will be at a premium with Dylan Cease on the mound for San Diego, so it's important to fill the zone with quality strikes and post some zeroes, especially early against a Padres team that's 12-2 at home this season and leads the league in double-digit hit games.
“Just eliminating mistakes, that’s been the focus, especially in not getting behind in counts,’’ said Pepiot, who’s had nine walks in his past four starts and is making his first Petco Park appearance. “I need to stay in the zone and go right after them. I’ve gotten into some holes where it’s been in hitters’ counts for sure.
“They have some great hitters and you’ve got to put up zeroes and give our guys a chance. They are good at home, and being a weekend, you know it’s going to be loud and hectic. You just want to keep the crowd out of it.’’
The Rays won 1-0 Friday night thanks to a great start from Shane Baz, who went seven innings and allowed just four hits. Manuel Rodriguez and Garrett Cleavinger pitched the eighth and ninth to lock down the win. High-leverage relievers Pete Fairbanks, Edwin Uceta and Hunter Bigge weren't available, so it was a big deal that Rodriguez and Cleavinger preserved the shutout. Fairbanks, Uceta and Bigge are all available Saturday.
Rookie Chandler Simpson is starting again for the Rays. He has hit safely in his first six career games, just the fourth Rays player to ever do that. Rocco Baldelli (11 games in 2003), Brent Abernathy (10 games in 2001) and Akinori Iwamura (nine games in 2007) are the others.
Simpson is batting eighth and playing center field. (Full starting lineup below).
Here's everything you need to know about the game.
How to watch Rays-Padres
- Who: Tampa Bay Rays (12-14) vs. San Diego Padres (17-9)
- When: Satuday, April 26 at 8:40 p.m. ET
- Where: Petco Park in San Diego, Calif.
- TV: FanDuel Sports Sun
- Radio: WDAE 95.3 FM/620 AM, WQBN 106.7/1300 AM (Spanish)
- Betting information: The Padres are favored on the money line at Fanduel.com at minus-146, and the Rays' money line odds are plus-124. On the run line, you can bet the Padres minus-1.5 at plus-155 odds, and the Rays plus-1.5 at minus-188 odds. The over/under is 7 runs for the second straight night.
- Weather: At 5 p.m. PT in San Diego, the temperature is 62 degrees and sunny with winds out of the west soutwest at 11 miles per hour. The chance of rain is 0 percent for the game, but it did rain 0.05 inches earlier in the day. The Petco Park grounds crew had the tarp out for only. the second time all year.
Rays starting lineup
- Yandy Diaz DH
- Brandon Lowe 2B
- Junior Caminero 3B
- Jonathan Aranda 1B
- Christopher Morel LF
- Kameron Misner RF
- Jose Caballero SS
- Chandler Simpson CF
- Danny Jansen C
Padres starting lineup
- Fernando Tatis Jr. RF
- Gavin Sheets DH
- Manny Machado 3B
- Xander Bogaerts SS
- Tirso Ornelas LF
- Yuli Gurriel 1B
- Jose Iglesias 2B
- Tyler Wade CF
- Martin Maldanado C
Rays-Padres starting pitchers
- RYAN PEPIOT, Rays: The 27-year-old right-hander from Indianapolis is 1-3 with a 4.82 ERA through five starts. He's had just one bad outing — giving up six runs and nine hits to Boston on April 15 — and he's allowed nine runs in 23 innings in the other four, which is a 3.52 ERA that sounds much better. Odd stat? All of Pepiot's first five starts have come at home in Tampa. His career road numbers are good, though. He has a 2.99 ERA in 16 road starts, and opponents are hitting just .205 against him.
- DYLAN CEASE, Padres: Cease, who came to San Diego from the Chicago White Sox in March 2024, is as durable and reliable as they come. Since the start of the 2021 season, he leads all of baseball in starts (135), strikeouts (921) and pitches thrown (12,974). He's also been pretty darn good. Like Pepiot, he's had just one bad outing, giving up nine runs in four innings to the Athletics on April 8. He's 1-1 with a 6.04 ERA, but that number would be 3.41 otherwise. This is his seventh career start vs. Tampa Bay.
Related Rays stories
- BAZ SPARKLES IN 1-0 WIN (Fri.): The Tampa Bay Rays won their third straight game Friday night, beating the San Diego Padres 1-0 thanks to seven scoreless innings from starter Shane Baz. Manuel Rodriguez and Garrett Cleavinger closed it out. CLICK HERE
- MEET THE OPPONENT: Tampa Bay's West Coast road trip continues this weekend in San Diego, where they'll run into a Padres team that is 17-8 already and a spectacular 12-1 at home. Here are three things to know about the Padres. CLICK HERE
- RAYS WIN IN EXTRAS AGAIN (Thurs.): For the second straight night, the Tampa Bay Rays rallied late against the Arizona Diamondbacks, tying the game in the ninth and winning 7-4 in the 10th. Junior Caminero and Christopher Morel had the big extra inning hits to complete the comeback. CLICK HERE
- RAYS WIN SLUGFEST (Wed.): Tampa Bay won its first road game of the year Wednesday night, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-6 in 11 innings. It was a slugfest with six lead changes, and it was just the second time in 57 Rays games where both teams scored six runs or more. CLICK HERE
Tom Brew is the publisher of ''Tampa Bay Rays on SI'' and has been with the Sports Illustrated platform since 2019. He has worked at some of America's finest newspapers, including the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He owns eight sites on the "On SI'' network and has written four books.
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