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Brewers-Padres Preview

Aug 1, 2009 - 6:49 AM By JEFF MEZYDLO STATS Senior Writer

Milwaukee (51-52) at San Diego (42-62), 10:05 p.m. EDT

The San Diego Padres aren't wasting any time sending one of their newest acquisitions to the mound.

Involved in the trade that ended Jake Peavy's career in San Diego, Clayton Richard makes his NL debut while trying to help the Padres to a fifth straight victory Saturday night against the Milwaukee Brewers at Petco Park.

Richard is one of four young pitchers the Chicago White Sox traded to San Diego (42-62) in exchange for Peavy, the former Cy Young Award winner who is on the disabled list with an ankle injury.

The 25-year-old left-hander is the most experienced of those the Padres received in the deal that also brought Aaron Poreda, Dexter Carter and Adam Russell to San Diego. Richard was 4-3 with a 4.65 ERA in 26 games - 14 starts - for the White Sox this season after going 2-5 with a 6.04 ERA in 13 games a year ago.

Richard, who was scheduled to start for Chicago against the New York Yankees on Friday, was taken back by the trade despite being rumored in a similar deal two months ago that never materialized because Peavy failed to waive his no-trade clause.

"Pretty surprised," Richard said. "I really just thought (Peavy) didn't want to come over here. He turned it down and it was put to rest. Then, out of nowhere, it happens again. But I'm excited to go over there. We'll see how it goes."

In his only appearance against the Brewers on June 12, Richard allowed one run in five innings of a 7-2 loss at Milwaukee.

Though Richard goes from a contender to a last-place team, the Padres are in the midst of their longest undefeated stretch since winning 10 in a row from May 15-25.

On the same day San Diego fired hitting coach Jim Lefebvre and replaced him with Randy Ready, the Padres scored a season high for runs to rally from a six-run deficit and beat Milwaukee 11-7 on Friday.

"That's one thing about this club is the fact that our record doesn't show that we play hard every single night," said shortstop David Eckstein, who had three RBIs.

Youngsters Kyle Blanks and Will Venable homered for the Padres, who had a season-high 17 hits, but remain last in the majors in runs (391) and batting average (.235).

Venable has homered in each of his last two contests and is 5 for 10 with seven RBIs during that span. Blanks is batting .381 (8 for 21) with three home runs and six RBIs during a six-game hitting streak.

Prince Fielder had three hits with two RBIs on Friday for the Brewers (51-52), who scored seven runs in the second inning, but couldn't hold a sizable lead and finished 9-17 in July.

Despite his team's struggles, Fielder is batting .309, and is 6 for 12 in his last three contests.

In an attempt to improve a pitching staff that had a 5.67 ERA in July, the Brewers re-acquired reliever Claudio Vargas from the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday.

Vargas had a 1.64 ERA in eight games for the Dodgers. He went 11-6 with a 5.09 ERA for Milwaukee in 2007, but was released before the start of the 2008 season.

Milwaukee's Mike Burns (2-3, 6.30) was recalled from Triple-A Nashville to make his sixth start of the season and first versus San Diego.

The right-hander allowed six runs - four earned - and six hits in three innings of an 8-5 loss at Pittsburgh in his most recent start on July 20.