Padres’ Robbie Ray returns to face Giants with no excuses amid road struggles

Baseball loves a good homecoming. Some of the best parts are the awkward handshakes between former teammates pretending it’s just another game. Really, the broadcast can love that angle. But the Padres don’t need sentiment from Robbie Ray in the opening game of their series against the Giants. They need him to command the strike zone.

The Friars enter Oracle Park holding the final NL Wild Card by half a game over Arizona. They’re  also 32-39 away from Petco Park, which explains why a series against a 62-85 Giants team is nothing to sneeze at. These games have playoff implications. And they are also the games San Diego has made far too complicated on the road.

However, Ray has every reason to be comfortable. He owns a 16-10 record and 3.41 ERA across 39 career starts at Oracle Park. He knows the mound, the dimensions and the hitters wearing the uniform he wore five weeks ago. A pitcher rarely gets a friendlier setting for an important road start down the stretch.

The Padres acquired Ray and cash from San Francisco for Miguel Mendez and Joniel Hernandez because they needed a veteran capable of stabilizing the rotation. Through six starts, they’ve received a 4.71 ERA, 28 2/3 innings and an uncomfortable amount of traffic.

Robbie Ray’s walks have turned every inning into work

The 20 walks against 20 strikeouts are a bit much. A one-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio from a former Cy Young winner is unexpected. Ray has issued at least two walks in each of his six Padres starts and three or more in five of them.

His brief time with the Padres has also included some respectable work. The four starts between his rough Padres debut and last weekend’s disaster against the Yankees produced 21 1/3 innings and six earned runs. The free passes never completely disappeared, though. Even when Ray has limited the damage, he has forced himself to pitch around problems of his own creation.

That really blew up against New York. Ray needed 68 pitches to record seven outs while allowing five earned runs and four walks. The Yankees made him work, accepted what he gave them and buried the Padres before their offense had time to get anything going.

The Giants will attempt the same thing. Former teammates know Ray’s tendency to lose the zone, and the quickest way to get the ballpark working against him is to hand the home team runners for free.

Ray has completed six innings only twice since the trade. The Padres traded for him to work deeper into games, something the rotation before the trade deadline struggled with. Winning the trade will take years to judge. But tonight’s standard is immediate and fair. If Ray can work six innings, he will certainly give the Padres a chance to beat an eliminated team they should beat.

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