MLB Game Preview - San Francisco at San Diego

Sat Jul 27, 2019 8:40 PM EDT

Petco Park has become a house of horrors for the home team. Actually, the past 21 games have been a disaster both at home and on the road for the San Diego Padres.

And making matters even worse for the Padres these days are the San Francisco Giants, who are one of baseball's hottest teams.

The trends peaked Friday night.

Not only did Giants manager Bruce Bochy -- a former Padres manager -- receive a standing ovation from a sellout crowd at Petco Park during a pregame tribute, but San Francisco went on to beat San Diego for a sixth straight game when Pablo Sandoval homered in the 11th inning for a 2-1 victory.

It wasn't a walk-off homer, but it might as well have been. It's as if the Giants are the home team at Petco Park these days.

The Padres hope to reverse their skid Saturday night, when they send out right-hander Cal Quantrill (3-2, 3.76 ERA) against San Francisco's Shaun Anderson (3-2, 4.91 ERA).

"We've been playing well," Bochy said of the Giants, who have 18 wins in the past 22 games. "You never know what is going to happen when you are playing like this."

One thing that could happen is the Giants could make the playoffs in Bochy's last year at the helm, with the manager set to retire in the offseason. They are now only 2 1/2 games outside the second National League wild-card slot.

Meanwhile, the Padres are in freefall, although manager Andy Green believes they could reverse their slide -- 6-15 since June 30 -- at any time.

"There's time to turn it around," Green said Friday. "We know the last few years we played the Giants really well. The last few series, we did not play good baseball. We haven't pitched, we dug holes early in games. ...

"Something we haven't done recently is put runs on the board early. We need Fernando Tatis Jr. on base early and jump on these guys quickly today. It's baseball. It changes, and it changes quickly. When I was first here, the Giants beat us the first nine times in the season and we turned around and beat them the last nine of the last 10 times."

But there is the matter of the Padres scoring one run in their last 20 innings while only one of their starting pitchers has gone beyond five innings in the past eight games.

Quantrill will be making his ninth start of the rookie season Saturday night. However, only two of his past seven appearances came as a starter -- including his only career outing against the Giants on July 3 at Petco Park. He allowed three runs on five hits and a walk with four strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings.

Quantrill, 24, has given up no runs on five hits and a walk with nine strikeouts over 11 2/3 innings in his two most recent appearances (one start).

Anderson, 24, will be making the 14th start of his rookie season Saturday. While he is only one game above .500, the Giants are 9-4 in his starts, and they have come out on top in each of his past five outings.

Most recently, Anderson got a no-decision Monday against the Chicago Cubs, allowing three runs on three hits in five innings. He has a 1-0 record and a 5.40 ERA in his two starts against the Padres.

--Field Level Media