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San Diego Padres

Cole Hamels was the World Series MVP last October. He went 4-0 with a 1.88 ERA in the postseason, leading the Phillies to their first title in 28 years. But Hamels has a serious problem with his elbow right now. He felt tightness during spring training and his first start of the season was pushed back to give him additional rest. It didn’t matter – Hamels lacked velocity and was positively shelled at Colorado, allowing seven runs and eleven hits in just 3.2 innings of work.
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel talking about his ace: “Cole Hamels doesn’t pitch at 86 mph. He pitches 93. That’s a huge difference. That tells me that he’s not quite ready yet.” Hamels was still scheduled to make his regular start on Wednesday at Washington, but that game was rained out. Manuel: “Right at this moment, I don’t know if the extra rest is good for him or not.” And with the added distraction of the death of longtime broadcaster Harry Kalas, the Phillies are a long way from being in mid-season form right now. Manuel: “We have had a lot of distractions and a lot of things going on.”

San Diego was widely expected to be one of the worst teams in baseball coming into the season. Expectations have been dead wrong thusfar. The Padres have won six of their last seven, scoring at least six runs five times during that span. Padres starter Chris Young has been brilliant, outpitching Tim Lincecum in his last outing after outpitching Randy Wolf in his opener. Young has a 1.96 ERA in three previous starts against the Phillies. Behind him, the Padres have the second best bullpen ERA in baseball through the first two weeks of the season while the Phillies rank 19th in that same category. This price is way to high given these circumstances and matchups. 2* Take San Diego.