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Posted at 1:30 PM EST. 

10:15 PM EST. Luis Perdomo (RHP) is talented but he’s also as raw as sushi salmon. Prior to 2016, Perdomo never had appeared above Single-A, so it’s no surprise that the Rule 5 draftee had his share of struggles in the majors. Despite a 9.10 ERA through 29.2 innings as a reliever, Perdomo was moved to the starting rotation in June and finished the year with a 5.71 ERA in 147 innings. While he has great potential, he should be honing his skills in the minors as opposed to learning at this level. He has a heavy reliance on just two pitches and two-pitch pitchers in this league can rarely succeed as a starter. Two-pitch pitchers are usually relievers and relievers are former starters that could not cut it as one. Perdomo throws his sinker or curve 91% of the time because his fastball gets whacked. He’s still a work in progress that needs more seasoning and will also likely need some solid run support of which the Padres likely won’t give him here.

Enter Jeff Samardzija (RHP) and his 7.40 ERA and 0-4 record after four starts. That fat ERA and brutal record is going to scare away plenty of folks but not us because Samardzija is not a 0-4, 7.40 ERA pitcher. Au contraire my friends. A ridiculously low 53% strand rate has torpedoed Samardzija’s surface stats. Thing is, Samardzija has 30 K’s in 24 innings. He has a swing and miss rate of 13.4% and let’s not dismiss that he’s pitched in Colorado and Arizona in two of his four starts. It’s not just strand rate either, as Samardzija has endured a trifecta of bad luck with a high hit % and high hr/f rate too. He has above average league skills, an elite strikeout rate and he’ll now take a big step down in class when facing the Padres, who were swinging at everything last night in Arizona and hitting nothing. They’ll be swinging away here too and probably missing. 

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