The four-for-two race for the second and third Wild Card spot in the National League is tight, and the trade deadline reflected that. The Chicago Cubs are probably in, but the Arizona Diamondbacks and Philadelphia Phillies are currently tied, with the San Diego Padres and Miami Marlins two games back.
The Padres made one of the most aggressive moves of any team at the trade deadline, acquiring Robbie Ray in advance of a critical four-game road series against the Diamondbacks, and Arizona tried to acquire Clay Holmes before settling for outfielder Lars Nootbaar.
The Diamondbacks won the first game of what could effectively turn out to be a play-in series, and the second game is scheduled for 9:40 p.m. ET tonight. Randy Vasquez will start for San Diego, and Eduardo Rodríguez will toe the rubber for Arizona.
Let’s break down this pivotal matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
San Diego Padres at Arizona Diamondbacks Best Bets
- Arizona Diamondbacks Moneyline (-112): Both of these teams have been pretty hot since the All-Star break, but the Diamondbacks have been a half-game better after claiming the series opener last night. Rodríguez is the better starter, so I’ll back him to get the job done tonight.
- Arizona Diamondbacks First Run of Game (+110): Again, this comes down to the starting pitchers. Both Rodríguez and Vásquez have out-performed their expected numbers, but both Vásquez’s raw stats and expected numbers are far worse, and he plays with a worse defense behind him.
San Diego Padres at Arizona Diamondbacks prediction, preview
The All-Star break was clearly good for the Padres, who lost 11 of their last 16 games before the break to fall to just an 11.4% chance of making the playoffs, but since then, they’ve gone 10-7 and now have roughly a one-in-four shot. In particular, San Diego’s offense, which has been awful all season, hit its groove right after the All-Star break, as it’s posted the third-best OPS across that span. Ty France has especially been on fire, slashing .379/.425/.667 across that span, and Fernando Tatis Jr. has found his swing as well. Additionally, the Padres’ rotation has been nearly a full run better than it was before the break, and their bullpen has been mostly stable. San Diego saw the improvement it has made and decided to go all-in on improving its rotation, bringing in Ray and Casey Mize.
The Diamondbacks have been pretty good to start the second half of the season, too. Arizona is 11-6 across its first 17 games, and their odds have increased from just 20.3% on the final day of the All-Star break to 49.5% today. Like the Padres, the Diamondbacks’ bats have heated up, as they’ve posted the sixth-best OPS since the Midsummer Classic, and while they made only modest moves, they didn’t necessarily need to with Gabriel Moreno breaking out and Geraldo Perdomo finding his form. Arizona also stood pat instead of making upgrades to its pitching room, as it’s had an average rotation this season thanks to Rodríguez’s breakout. The Diamondbacks have still had a below-average bullpen, especially in the second half of the season, but they did in 2023 as well and ended up making a run all the way to the World Series.
Vásquez seems like a candidate to keep his spot in the rotation even once Ray and Mize make their debuts, as he’s been pretty solid. In 21 appearances (17 starts), he’s pitched to a 4.45 ERA, including a 2.45 mark across his last 11.0 innings (one start and three relief appearances). Advanced numbers aren’t so kind to Vásquez, though; he ranks in just the second percentile in both expected ERA and expected batting average and in the fifth percentile in pitching run value. In particular, he’s posted bottom-decile whiff and strikeout rates, which could be a particularly salient issue given Arizona’s elite contact skills. Vásquez has also allowed plenty of hard hits, ranking in the sixth percentile in both barrel rate and hard-hit rate and the first percentile in average exit velocity. That might not be such a huge problem against the Diamondbacks, given that they thrive on soft contact, but his struggles to produce grounders could bite him at one of the league’s most hitter-friendly ballparks. He has been somewhat better on the road, but Arizona has expectedly been better at home.
Like Vásquez, Rodríguez has out-performed his expected numbers. With the exception of a 2.2-inning, five-run affair on July 19, he’s been awesome, pitching to a career-best 2.48 ERA and allowing two or fewer earned runs in 17 of his 22 starts. Advanced stats, though, suggest that he’s due for a blow-up: he has just a 4.81 xERA and a 20th-percentile expected batting average. In particular, Rodríguez has been bad at generating either whiffs or strikeouts, and the Padres have been a pretty solid contact-hitting team as is. Instead, he’s had to rely heavily on the defenders behind him, and to be fair, the Diamondbacks have been among the league’s best fielding teams. Rodríguez has also given up hard contact occasionally, ranking in just the 29th percentile in barrel rate, and San Diego, for all its offensive weak points, has had the 12th-highest barrel rate in the sport. Plus, he’ll have to go against a Padres team that has been better on the road.
San Diego Padres at Arizona Diamondbacks pick, best bet
Best Bet: Arizona Diamondbacks Moneyline (-112)
Ultimately, despite Rodríguez’s comparatively underwhelming advanced numbers, his track record of success is significant enough to suggest that he’s more likely to continue over-performing his numbers than Vásquez is. As hot as San Diego’s bats are, so are Arizona’s.
Strong Lean: Arizona Diamondbacks First Run of Game (+110)
The Padres will have the first opportunity to score in every inning as the away team, but again, I’m banking on Rodríguez’s pitching advantage over Vásquez. He’s shut down strong lineups before, and by comparison, San Diego is an easy test.
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