Tom Pringle (@PedroiasFace) will be covering the Padres during the season. His updates won’t be game-recaps, more like weekly or monthly recaps. If you don’t get the twist on words in the title, you’re dead to him.
What Happened?
The Padres bullpen really made itself known. The bullpen that plenty of folk (myself included) really thought they could be something worth watching throughout the season. Well, they are if you’re an opposition fan.
The Padres won two and lost four since the last post. Two of those losses were mainly on the bullpen, but we’ll explore that later.
What went wrong?
Ah, it’s later already. The bullpen. Maurer falling apart during the loss on the 17th against the Brewers was bad. Brad Hand getting “Small balled” against the White Sox on the 13th was disappointing.
Their implosion against the White Sox on the 14th May was just awful. Sardinas did miss a double play opportunity in the bottom of the 8th that could have killed that whole process and seen the Padres walk away from Guaranteed Rate Field (great name) with a 3-1 win. If you haven’t watched that inning, go do it now. It’s terrible.
The Padres are officially the worst team in the Majors when it comes to batting Avg and OBP. Hashtag sadface.
What went right?
The final statement in what went wrong is surprising, because in isolation their hitting is still good, Myers, Margot and Hedges are still producing. However, the one I really want to talk about is Allen Cordoba, the Rule 5 pick that seems to be one that will stay in the big leagues going forward. His fielding still leaves a little to be desired, but hey, you can’t have everything from a Rule 5 pick, right?
But not as excellent as the confusion on Margot and Cordobas faces as this happened. pic.twitter.com/GmE9TSdzCA
— Tom Pringle ⚾️🇬🇧 (@PedroiasFace) May 16, 2017
Perdomo had a great start against the Brewers, only giving up three runs over six innings, while also dealing out 9Ks. He’s really improving with every start and should continue to become a more cemented 4 or 5 guy in the rotation in the future. During the same game we also saw a 2-on 2-outs walk-off win chance wasted with Hedges striking out, however Renfroe had other ideas. Managing to hit a 2-run walkoff homer on a pitch that he has generally been striking out on all year so far.
What’s next?
The Friars finish off their home series against the Brewers tonight with Jarred Cosart returning to the mound. Then they will have a three-game home series against the hot Diamondbacks before enjoying a day off.
The Great All-Rounder Experiment Will Austin Hedges Ever Hit Again? How long will Jankowski last in the lineup? Days until Weaver is DFA’d?
I went for five days until Weaver would be DFA’d, but he was actually pretty good in his start against the White Sox, only giving away one run over six innings (After getting out of a pretty solid jam in the first).
Until next time, here’s some numbers that I’ll keep updated for the year.
Stats: (Positions in brackets for all qualified players in MLB)
Win/Loss – 15-27 .357
Individual Stats:
Batt Avg. Leader – W. Myers .298 (37th)
OBP Leader – W. Myers .333 (Tied 90th)
OPS Leader – W. Myers .911 (26th)
Starter ERA – T. Cahill 3.27 (33rd)
Strikeouts – T. Cahill 51 (20th)
Relievers WHIP – J. Torress 0.94 (33rd)
Team Stats:
Batting AVG. – .222 (30th)
OBP – .287 (30th)
OPS – .668 (28th)
ERA (Starter) – 4.41 (14th)
ERA (Relievers) – 5.35 (29th)
Strikeouts – 340 (11th)
WHIP (Relievers) – 1.38 (17th)