Padres host Orioles in opener of key homestand

The Padres will host the Baltimore Orioles in the first of three games Monday night as San Diego opens its longest and arguably most important homestand of the season.

If the Padres don't play well over the next 10 games, it could be their last important homestand of the season.

The Padres return home from a 1-4 trip to Seattle and Arizona that concluded with two straight losses to a Diamondbacks team that had lost nine straight.

"This was as tough a loss as we've had this season," Padres manager Bob Melvin said Sunday after his club fell 5-4 after leading 3-0 in the top of the first inning. "And we've had some really tough losses. It's not one or two guys -- it's the entire 26-man roster."

The Padres are six games below .500 and 5 1/2 games out of the last wild-card spot in the National League with 44 games to go. They almost need a series sweep of the Orioles to climb back into playoff contention -- and the Orioles haven't been swept in 77 straight series.

"There are numbers you can point to that are meaningful to a team's success; that is one," Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said of the team's ability to avoid being swept. "You do that over a season and you're going to have success."

Which the Orioles have. They have the second-best record in the major leagues and own a three-game lead over the second-place Tampa Bay Rays in the extremely competitive American League East. The Orioles flew to San Diego from Seattle on Sunday afternoon after defeating the Mariners 5-3 in 10 innings on Cedric Mullins' two-run home run.

Which brings us to two other stats to compare the Orioles' and Padres' seasons. The Orioles are 22-11 in one-run games and improved to 8-5 in extra-inning games with Sunday's success in Seattle. The Padres fell to 6-19 in one-run games with Sunday's loss in Arizona and are 0-10 in extra-inning contests.

After the three games with the Orioles, the Padres will host Arizona for four games and the Miami Marlins for three -- 10 games in 10 days.

The San Diego-Baltimore series will start Monday night with Padres right-handed veteran Yu Darvish (8-7, 4.19 ERA) going against 23-year-old right-hander Grayson Rodriguez (2-3, 5.84).

Darvish has allowed three runs (two earned) on 14 hits and four walks with 17 strikeouts over 19 innings in his last three starts for a 0.95 ERA. He is 1-0 in those starts.

Darvish will make his 22nd start of the season. He has 125 strikeouts in 120 1/3 innings.

Darvish has made only one start against the Orioles in his career, and that was in 2016 when he gave up three runs on six hits and a walk with nine strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings. But three of the hits were home runs.

Rodriguez has never faced the Padres. He has made 15 starts with the Orioles, with 80 strikeouts in 74 innings.