(Photo credit: Rhona Wise-Imagn Images)

San Diego Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has made it clear he wants to acquire more offense before the trade deadline.

The Padres, for the time being, are trying to make do with what they have. That challenge continues when they visit the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday in the third contest of a four-game series.

The Cardinals recorded a 9-7 win on Thursday and a 3-0 victory on Friday night.

The bottom third of the Padres' batting order went 4-for-24 in these two games.

Overall, the Padres went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position Friday while stranding nine runners.

Coming into this series, Padres manager Mike Shildt underscored his team's need to deliver good at-bats more consistently.

'Our biggest thing is just to continue to make good swing decisions,' Padres manager Mike Shildt told KMOX radio. 'We have an aggressive club, which I love. I've always loved teams and players that are aggressive.

'But we also want to make sure we're in the strike zone with what we're swinging at. We do that, we're pretty lethal.'

San Diego will give the starting nod to right-hander Randy Vasquez (3-4, 3.73 ERA), who has failed to work five or more innings in six of his past nine starts. He has a 3.07 ERA in his three starts in July, however.

Vasquez won his only previous start against the Cardinals while allowing two runs on six hits over six innings in a 7-4 triumph on Aug. 26, 2024.

The Padres and Cardinals are in a span of seven games against each other in 11 days. St. Louis trails San Diego by 1 1/2 games in the chase for the final wild-card spot in the National League.

'It's important,' Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said after the win on Friday. 'It's important. We have two more, we've taken the first two, we'll focus on tomorrow. We want to make sure we take tomorrow's game. Then we'll focus on the fourth game, then we'll go to their place. They're ahead of us, we're chasing. We need every game.'

St. Louis will give the starting nod on Saturday to left-hander Matthew Liberatore (6-7, 4.13), who got extra rest after allowing six runs on nine hits -- including two homers -- in three innings in a 6-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves on July 11.

Liberatore still is trying to build endurance as a starting pitcher after swinging between starting and relief work earlier in his career.

'This is a guy who likes to throw a lot,' Marmol said. 'He recovers well. He's feeling strong. He had that little bit of a hiccup where velocity wasn't what it needed to be, and he was having trouble holding it for that outing. The next outing was a little better, and then after that, it was fine.

'But yeah, we'll continue to monitor it. But at the moment, he feels good.'

Liberatore is 0-1 with a 3.38 ERA in five career relief appearances against the Padres. This is his first career start against them.

--Field Level Media