Series Preview: San Diego Padres at Los Angeles Dodgers

Tonight, the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers kick off a four-game series at Dodger Stadium that will undoubtedly play a role in where these teams end up in the NL West by the end of the season.

Team Records

Dodgers: 43-29 (25-12 home)
Padres: 39-31 (18-19 away)

The Dodgers have won 6 of their last 10 games and the Padres have won just 4. When these teams matched up a week ago at Petco Park, the Padres scored 20 runs over 3 games and still lost the series 2-1.

Pitching Matchups

Game 1 (tonight): Dylan Cease vs. Shohei Ohtani (opener)
Game 2 (tomorrow): Randy Vasquez vs. TBD
Game 3 (Wednesday): Stephen Kolek vs. TBD
Game 4 (Thursday): Ryan Bergert vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto

The Dodgers, just as they were last week, are doing a bit of a high-wire act with their pitching at the moment. While they wait for the return of Blake Snell, Rōki Sasaki, Tyler Glasnow and Tony Gonsolin, it's a lot of bullpen days.

ESPN has the probable starters as Yamamoto on Wednesday and Kershaw on Thursday, which seems possible to me, but everyone else has it the way it is listed above. I'm going to assume they're right, but that would potentially mean 3 bullpen games in 3 days.

Mike Shildt likely isn't letting Vasquez or Kolek or Bergert face the Dodgers' lineup for a third time, even if they're successful the first two times through, so both bullpens could be exhausted by the end of this series.

What to watch for

This is the series that we look forward to all year, but that doesn't mean we completely understand it. Here are some things to keep an eye out for, in hopes of being able to see what's coming before it happens.

Top-third

Not to simplify things too much, but a lot of the offensive firepower of both teams rests in the top third of their lineups.

In their first matchup of the season, the Padres' top-third of Tatis-Arraez-Machado went 11-35 (.314) with 4 walks. The Dodgers, who might have the best top-third in baseball with Ohtani-Betts-Freeman, went 10-38 (.263) with 5 walks.

San Diego can not compete with Los Angeles in terms of depth or even the lower-third of the lineup, so they'll need to continue winning the battle at the top.

Magic power, activate!

Fernando Tatis Jr. has not hit a home run since May 27th and he has only hit one home run since May 20th. While he is finding other ways to contribute, with his fielding and running and contact hitting, his lack of power has had a cascading effect on the team's home run totals.

The good news? Tatis has more home runs at Dodger Stadium (12) than any other road ballpark. For his career, he's slashing .313/.366/.626 in Chavez Ravine. Between that and a penchant for showing up big when the lights are brightest, there's at least a chance that Tatis comes out of the longest home run drought of his career before this series is over.

Juggling the catchers

If you were Mike Shildt, would you trust Robert Suarez?

In his fourth season with the Padres, Suarez has shown a penchant for wearing down in June and July, and this year is following a similar pattern. That being said, I think there's a more important Suarez-related stat that we should be paying attention to and that's the catcher that is receiving Suarez's pitches.

In the 15 games where Suarez threw to Elias Díaz, he has been a disaster. In the 16 games where he has thrown to Martín Maldonado, who often gets replaced by Díaz late in games for offensive purposes, he's practically untouchable.

Why? I have no idea. In theory, Suarez is throwing the same fastball and occasionally working in a changeup to both guys. But I know I'm going to be keeping an eye on who is behind the dish if Suarez comes jogging in to close out any of these four games for the Padres.

And, if you're Mike Shildt, now is probably not the time to figure out if you can get the Suarez-Díaz pair on the same page. Save it for the home series against the Royals this weekend.