Daniel Murphy out of lineup for Justin Turner

It's Dinosaur Education Day here on Thursday afternoon at Citi Field. Naturally, there's a 15-foot T-Rex along with a 17-foot animatronic hadrosaurus roaming the field right now. I suspect there's a joke to be made about the Yankees roster. But I'll pass. Anyway, back to the Mets...

-- Second baseman Daniel Murphy is out of the starting lineup as the Mets go for the three-game sweep of the Padres. Manager Terry Collins will start Justin Turner instead.

"We've got a whole weekend of righthanded pitching coming up so I thought today would be a good day to get Justin in there," said Collins, who insists that Murphy's absence is "not because of any injury issues or anything else."

-- As you recall, Murphy and third baseman David Wright suffered from strained intercostal muscles in spring training. But Collins said he'll lean on both players to speak up if they need physically need a day off.

-- Collins said he will also use the weekend to get starts for outfielders Mike Baxter and Kirk Nieuwenhuis. He also wants to do the same for Jordany Valdespin, who enjoyed a strong spring training, but has yet to start a game. It's unclear where Valdespin would start defensively.

-- Accuweather.com is forecasting a sunny 47-degree afternoon by first pitch at 1:10 p.m. Of course, weather might to be such an issue if the Mets were instead playing in San Diego, where it will be 64 degrees.

"That's not a question for me," Collins said. "I can't answer that. I didn't write the schedule. I wouldn't be playing in Minnesota [next week] if I wrote the schedule... I know there were players asking me yesterday 'how come we're not playing in San Diego?' I said the same thing: you're asking the wrong guy."

The starting lineups:

Padres

Everth Cabrera SS

Will Venable RF

Mark Kotsay LF

Yonder Alonso 1B

Jedd Gyorko 3B

Alexi Amarista 2B

Cameron Maybin CF

John Baker C

Eric Stults LHP

Mets

Collin Cowgill CF

Justin Turner 2B

David Wright 3B

Ike Davis 1B

Marlon Byrd RF

Lucas Duda LF

John Buck C

Ruben Tejada SS

Dillon Gee RHP