Good morning from Sacramento,
Yesterday could have gone worse for the Padres.
But for a Tuesday in the season’s second week, it was pretty bad.
A blowout loss was the least of their problems. By far.
Before losing 10-4 to the Athletics, the Padres lost three key members of their team for at least a short time.
You can read in my game story (here) about the rotten day and rotten game, which saw right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. leave with left shoulder “irritation” and second baseman Jake Cronenworth depart with what was termed “cramping” in the area on his right side that absorbed a 94 mph fastball on Sunday.
You can read in the game preview story (here) by me and Jeff Sanders about center fielder Jackson Merrill going on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain.
Cronenworth and Tatis will be out at least for today’s series finale. Both players and manager Mike Shildt expressed the belief they won’t miss much time.
And while they’re out …
“What I’m confident will happen (is) guys will step up and perform,” Shildt said. “We’ve got a good club, we’ve got a lot of good parts to it. We’ve got guys that are more than cable showing tomorrow and help us win a Major League Baseball game.”
If the Padres’ public proclamations of having a low level of concern about the three players in question prove accurate, then it would seem they have a chance for what Shildt says to play out.
But if any or all of the three players they lost yesterday are out for an extended period — especially Tatis and/or Merrill — the Padres are probably in trouble.
This is a good team built around a core of good players.
So far, Luis Arraez, Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado, Cronenworth, Merrill and Tatis are doing their jobs. What that means is they are collectively providing the bulk of the production for a team that still has MLB’s best record.
The Core 6 has a combined .869 OPS. The rest of the players on the team have a .584 OPS altogether.
Merrill and Tatis rank first and second, respectively in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Cronenworth’s .409 on-base percentage and .895 OPS are right behind those two. Merrill’s three home runs lead the team with Tatis and Cronenworth tied for second with two apiece. Merrill’s 10 RBIs are tops on the Padres with Tatis (seven) second and Cronenworth and Bogaerts (five) tied for fourth behind Gavin Sheets (six). Tatis has scored a team-high 10 runs with Cronenworth and Merrill (seven) tied for third behind Machado (nine).
Sheets has some big hits. Yuli Gurriel has a couple. The two catchers have been better at the plate than expected.
But there is not a person in the organization that, hooked up to a lie detector, would deny the Padres will go as far as their core will take them.
For today, facing a right-handed starter, it is likely the Padres are swapping Cronenworth, Merrill and Tatis for Jose Iglesias, Brandon Lockridge and Jason Heyward.
The team’s next four games are against the Athletics and Rockies. Merrill is also going to miss the Cubs series at Petco Park before being eligible to return April 18 in Houston.
This is survivable. For a time.
Rotation spinning
There is something else that is potentially troubling.
Here is a look at the past five starts for the Padres (so one start for each pitcher in the rotation):
Michael King did come within one out of a quality start, but he is the only pitcher to have completed even five innings over the past five games.
The Padres’ bullpen has the second-lowest ERA (1.78) and lowest batting average allowed (.159) in the majors. But their relievers are having to cover an average of more than 4⅓ innings per game, second most in MLB.
A blue freeze
One of the friendliest players in Major League Baseball is being frozen out by some umpires.
Arraez said the crew working this series has not acknowledged his greetings. Not every umpire to work a Padres game this season has failed to engage the gregarious Arraez, but this series is not an isolated occurrence.
The cold shoulder began in spring training after Arraez gave a disparaging quote about umpires while talking about trying to have more plate discipline in 2025.
“This year, I am coming to take a lot of walks,” Arraez said in February. “Let’s see if the umpires are coming good this year. I don’t want to put excuses, but they were bad last year.”
Arraez said he was told by umpires once spring training games started that they saw the quotes. It has been since then that they have generally not reciprocated with him on the field like usual.
Arraez, who enjoys engaging with umpires and opponents, has seemed more sad than anything regarding the whole affair.
“I don’t want to think that they’re mad at me,” he said. “They’re not perfect just like I’m not perfect. I make errors and strike out. I just want to say sorry to them because they’re human just like me.”
The umpires’ apparent grudge has not translated into any sort of bias against Arraez in the calls made while he is at the plate. Entering play yesterday, he had three pitches outside the zone called strikes. There were 148 other players to have had that happen at least that many times this season.
“Thank God,” Arraez said. “ They know I’m a good hitter. They know I’m a good person.”
Umpires are not allowed to speak to the media except in the case of a pool reporter asking about an occurrence in a game.
Tidbits
- Machado scored his 1,000th career run last night. It came on his 343rd career homer, which moved him out of a tie with Nolan Arenado, Evan Longoria and Ron Santo and into 105th place alone on the all-time list.
- Arraez was 3-for-5 last night and is batting .313 on the season. It was his fourth consecutive multi-hit game, and he is 15-for-32 since going hitless in his first 16 at-bats of the season.
- Catcher Martín Maldonado was 3-for-4 last night, his first three-hit game since Aug. 11, 2023. Maldonado, who batted .186 over the previous six seasons, is 6-for-17 (.353) this season. The Padres’ catcher tandem of Maldonado and Elías Díaz is batting a combined .268 (11-for-41).
- Tatis extended his major league-leading on-base streak to 12 games with a walk last night.
- Wandy Peralta ran his season-opening scoreless streak to 6⅓ innings. He took nine pitches to get through last night’s eighth inning and has thrown just 58 pitches to 22 batters this season. That average of 2.64 pitches per batter faced is best in the majors among relievers who have faced at least 12 batters.
- The Padres are now 7-1 when scoring first this season.
All right, that’s it for me. Early game today (12:35 p.m.) and then a flight home.
Talk to you tomorrow.
