Baseball

We were surprised Smith wasn't pulled from the rotation last week with his ERA sitting at 15.63. Now it's up to 18.41. He has to be a goner this time, and Tim Stauffer, who replaced him tonight and allowed one run in 5 2/3 innings, is the obvious choice to replace him.

With two homers and three doubles among his 13 hits in his last eight games, Gyorko is really coming along now; his average is up to .283 and all five of his homers have come in May. We don't expect him to keep his average up this high -- he strikes out a bit too much right now -- but he's a solid play in mixed leagues.

Forsythe has been taking batting practice for a week with no issues and is ready to take the next step. He's been out all season with plantar fasciitis in his right foot, so he'll need plenty of rehab at-bats before returning.

The Padres want Maybin to get around 30 rehab at-bats, so he should return sometime next week. The outfielder has been sidelined since mid-April with a nagging right wrist ailment.

The Padres were expecting Quentin to miss just one game after he aggravated his chronic knee injury on an awkward slide Monday. They changed their minds, though, deciding to give him the injection in hopes that he'll be ready on Friday after Thursday's off day. Jesus Guzman is playing left field Wednesday.

Richard, out since May 4 with an intestinal virus, gave up five hits and no walks while striking out four. The southpaw threw 65 out of 94 pitches for strikes. It should be enough for the Padres to activate him from the disabled list.

Bass was ripped off tonight. The first hitter to reach against him did so on a strikeout/wild pitch. The second had a clean single, but Yadier Molina followed with a double-play ball, only Everth Cabrera vacated second base way too early on the relay and wasn't given credit for the out. With runners on second and third with one out, Bud Black had Bass intentionally walk Jon Jay, and Daniel Descalso followed with a grand slam. That was certainly a mistake for Bass, but he could have been out of the inning before then and he didn't deserve for his ERA to jump from 2.60 to 3.64 tonight.