Go to San Antonio if you want to see a Padres club that is playing winning baseball.

“It's exciting from where I'm sitting,” Padres farm overseer Grady Fuson said last night from San Antonio amid cheers from a loud, happy baseball crowd.

Fuson was watching the San Antonio Missions (46-33) roll to their sixth consecutive victory in the Double-A Texas League.

“These guys are playing the most incredible baseball I've seen in a long time on both sides,” Fuson said. “These guys are nails.”

Fuson is especially pleased with the team's pitching staff, which has produced 15 shutouts this season.

“They're doing everything right,” he said. “Their stuff is good. They're pitching to contact. They're using the change-up. They're down in the zone. There are just a lot of good things going on here.”

Padres General Manager Kevin Towers will fly to San Antonio so that he can see, among others, starting pitchers Will Inman, Steve Garrison and Matthew Buschmann. “Too bad he won't get to see Stephen Faris,” Fuson said a few days ago.

On Friday, Faris threw seven scoreless innings for the second straight outing to lower his ERA to 3.13 and raise his record to 5-2. Faris had a 4.37 ERA last season but now is armed with a sharper curveball, with help from Padres instructor Bob Cluck.

Triple-A

Towers said Portland infielder Luis Rodriguez should be ready to help the Padres soon, and Fuson said pitcher Clay Hensley is on track for promotion as well. Second baseman Matt Antonelli lifted his batting average from .165 to .190 after Padres coaches implored him to cut loose. “We've kind of taken his pitch selection away from him for now a little bit, saying, 'Hey, if you see a pitch you like, get after it,' ” Fuson said.

Double-A

Missions manager Bill Masse told the San Antonio Express-News that Faris, who will turn 24 tomorrow, is better than his so-so radar-gun listings that show up in the game report. “He didn't have his best stuff, but then he doesn't allow a run in seven innings,” Masse said. “I wonder what he would have done if he had his best stuff? Twenty strikeouts? When you're throwing shutouts and you don't have your best stuff, that's pretty good.”

Single-A

Fort Wayne shortstop Drew Cumberland will be on the disabled list for three weeks to a month because of an oblique strain, Fuson said. As for potential Single-A Padres, the Padres are close to reaching terms with second-round draft pick James Darnell, a third baseman from the University of South Carolina; and Adam Zornes, a catcher from Rice. Fuson said a representative from Scott Boras Corp. told the Padres it will get a second medical opinion on the right hip of Padres' first-round selection Allan Dykstra. Drafted 23rd overall on June 5, Dykstra didn't pass a physical by club doctors. “We still want to have interest in the player, but we're at a standstill until we get more medical information,” Fuson said. “He missed only one game at Wake Forest in three years.”