Padres News: Spring Training, Game 3 Recap

One more Spring Training game down, one more game closer to the regular season. This time the San Diego Padres jumped out in front first and captured their first victory of the 2015 Cactus League season.

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Here are the highlights from today’s shut-out victory over the Chicago White Sox:

Before the game, Buddy Black announces that infielder Jose Rondon had been reassigned to the minor league camp.

Justin Upton was also out of today’s lineup due to unknown illness, so Rymer Liriano got the start in left field.

One of the top stories of the day was that both pitcher in competition for the fifth starters position took the mound today — Odrisamer Despaigne and Brandon Morrow.

Despaigne threw for two innings, giving up two hits and three strikeouts on 31 total pitches.

Morrow also threw two innings. He gave up just two hits as well and collected one strikeout on 34 pitches. He did notable throw 21 strikes too.

Looking at the performances for these two today, pretty similar stats. Both did very well, so this may be a tougher decision for Buddy than originally thought.

Matt Kemp (2-3) got his first two hits as a Padre today. Beginning with a two-out single to left field in the first inning.

I was pleased to read Jon Heyman’s earlier story from today that Kemp is said to be getting along well in the Padres clubhouse so far, and has personally taken Rico Noel under his wing. Nice to see that veteran leadership we were reading about after the Kemp trade coming to fruition.

Carlos Rodon hit Carlos Quentin (0-2) with a pitch in the first, which comes of no surprise. For his career Quentin has been hit over 127 times. At least he didn’t charge the mound this time.

Brandon Morrow made his Padres debut to lead off the third inning in the scoreless game. Morrow finished with just two hits and one strike out in two innings.

Kyle Quackenbush also got some work in today throwing in the fifth and giving up just one hit.

Clint Barmes (1-2) celebrated his 36th birthday today with a hit to right field and as a gift manager Bud Black gave him a pinch-runner.

Tim Federowicz (1-2) hit an RBI double to give the Padres a 1-0 lead. Matt Kemp drove in Ramiro Pena (1-1) to make it 2-0 later in the same inning. Good game for Federowicz too, he threw down a runner trying to steal second earlier in the game.

An RBI single by Cody Decker (1-1) drove in Ramiro Pena again and gave the Padres a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the seventh, then followed by another RBI by Hunter Renfroe (1-1). Renfroe later crossed the plate himself to bring the lead to 5-0.

Brandon Maurer went in to pitch in the eighth and Jose Valverde came into pitch in the ninth to give the Padres the 5-0 shutout victory.

"“Isn’t it great? I love Grande.”-Buddy Black"

Tomorrow, it’s a rematch of game five of last years World Series. James Shields will make his Padres debut versus the San Fancisco Giants’ Madison Bumgarner in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Stay tuned to Friars On Base for all your Padres Spring Training news.

Go Pads!

Padres News: Spring Training, Game 3 Recap

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