First pitch: Wednesday, 10:10 p.m. ET
Line: San Diego +120, Los Angeles -130, Total: 7

Division rivals, the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers, finish off the first series of the new season on Wednesday night.

The Padres weere the busiest team in the offseason and have completely revamped their team in all areas of the game. They added names such as Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, James Shields and Justin Upton to their ballclub and most recently grabbed Craig Kimbrel just a day before the season began. The moves will certainly make this division more interesting and through the first two games you can already see a bitter rivalry brewing. These clubs split the first two contests of this series and San Diego is coming off a 7-3 win on Tuesday where they scored four ninth inning runs to earn the win. The Dodgers ballclub also has a ton of new faces this year as they attempt to put together another great season and they opened the year with a solid 6-3 win behind a late three-run homer from newcomer Jimmy Rollins. They kept the game close until the very end on Tuesday, but committed three errors and had only five chances with RISP. The bottom of the order is typically not the best, but they were horrible for this group on Tuesday with the seven through nine hitters going hitless over 11 at-bats with five strikeouts. Getting the start for the visitors in this rubber-match will be RHP Andrew Cashner (5-7, 2.55 ERA in 2014) as he faces off against RHP Brandon McCarthy (10-15, 4.05 ERA in 2014) of the host team. Los Angeles has dominated this series over the past few years, going 24-16 (.600) since the start of the 2013 campaign and are 4-2 in the past six games when at home. Some trends to watch include that McCarthy’s teams have gone 3-13 (.188) in the first half of the season since the start of past year as the Padres are 30-53 (.361) on the road in the same timeframe. The injury report has OF Melvin Upton Jr. (Foot) of the Padres and closer Kenley Jansen (Foot) of the Dodgers currently on the 15-day DL.

Cashner has made a tremendous transition to the starter’s role over the past few seasons and has had less than a 3.10 ERA in 45 starts in the past two years. He has seen his strikeout rate drop from double-digits to a mere 6.8 K/9 last year, but has managed to still be very effective with just 2.1 BB/9 and barely any balls leaving the park (0.51 HR/9 in 2014). He’s looked great in his six starts against the Dodgers, going 1-1 (3-3 team record) with a miniscule 1.32 ERA (1.10 WHIP) and has not given up more than two runs in any of those outings. Last year, he took them on three times, pitching 19 innings and giving up just four runs on 19 hits as he struck out 15 batters with three walks. The only player on Los Angeles who has gone yard against Cashner is 1B Adrian Gonzalez who hasn’t done too well overall (6-for-22, 1 HR, 3 RBIs, 6 Ks) in the matchup while OF Carl Crawford (6-for-18, 2 doubles, 6 Ks) and C A.J. Ellis (5-for-10) have done well against him. So far the Padres bullpen has worked five innings and has allowed five runs (4 ER) on just four hits as they struck out seven batters. Making his debut on Tuesday was Craig Kimbrel (0.00 ERA, 0 saves) and he looked very comfortable with a perfect 1-2-3 inning in which he struck out the side in a non-save situation.

McCarthy hopes to build on a great 2014 season where his 4.05 ERA was masked with batters hitting an unsustainable .328 BABIP against him. He really showed up when he made a move to the Yankees in the second half, going 7-5 with a 2.89 ERA and struck out a ton; posting a career-best 7.9 K/9 on the year. The only problem that he faced was homers as he allowed the most (1.13 HR/9) since 2009 and that number should trend more towards his career mark of 1.03 HR/9 moving forward. McCarthy has been great in his time against the Padres with a 4-1 record (5-1 team record) and 2.43 ERA (0.96 WHIP). He did have one poor outing (6.2 IP, 5 ER, 4 Ks) against the Padres last year, but totaled 14 innings with a mere one run allowed on nine hits behind a 13:1 K/BB ratio in the other two. No one on San Diego has done particularly well in their time against McCarthy with 1B Yonder Alonso (3-for-12, 1 doubles, 1 HR, 2 RBI) being the only player to leave the park as 2B Jedd Gyorko has been horrible, going hitless with five strikeouts in 14 at-bats. The Los Angeles’ bullpen has been on the mound for six innings through the first two contests and not done too well with six runs given up (3 ER) on 10 hits as they have a 6:1 K/BB ratio. Chris Hatcher (18.00 ERA, 1 save) was given the closer job until Jansen comes back and after getting a nice save in the season opener, was lit up for four runs (2 ER) on three hits before getting an out on Tuesday.