Padres look for sweep of D-backs

“Sweep” isn’t a word the San Diego Padres have heard much around Petco Park this season.

They do have one home sweep — a two-game interleague blitz of the Seattle Mariners on April 23-24. But the Padres’ overall home record is 13-14 this season, and they lost three of four at Petco Park last weekend to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

However, they go into the Wednesday afternoon finale of a three-game series against Arizona with a chance to sweep the Diamondbacks.

The Padres set up those possibilities with back-to-back, one-run wins over Arizona — 2-1 Monday night on Franmil Reyes’ two-run homer and 3-2 Tuesday night on Eric Hosmer’s two-run homer. In what could be a soggy Wednesday, the Padres will send out second-year left-hander Eric Lauer (2-4, 5.24 ERA) against Diamondbacks rookie right-hander Merrill Kelly (4-4, 4.21 ERA). Both pitchers will be making their 10th start of the season.

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Lauer, who was one of three first-round picks the Padres had in the 2016 draft, will be making his fifth career start against the Diamondbacks. Overall, the 6-foot-3, 23-year-old Lauer is 1-2 against Arizona with a 3.38 ERA, a 1.64 WHIP and a .344 opponents’ batting average.

He is 0-2 against the Diamondbacks in two starts this season, giving up seven runs on 17 hits and a walk with seven strikeouts in 10 innings for a 6.30 ERA and a 1.80 WHIP.

Lauer allowed two runs (one earned) on seven hits in 5 2/3 innings in his most recent outing, Thursday against the Pirates.

Lauer threw a season-high 105 pitches vs. Pittsburgh while pitching more than five innings for only the fourth time this season. “We need Lauer and (Joey) Lucchesi to start going deeper into games to take the extra workload off our bullpen,” Green said.

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