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 swept the Cubs.
Yeah they may have lost to the Nationals since the last Tuckin’ Hell, but they swept the current World Champions.
Oh wait, they also beat the Nationals 5-3 before…
SWEEPING THE CUBS.
What went wrong?
My notes did tell me the bullpen aren’t great, but they did very well in the sweeping of the Cubs (Did I mention that?). I think the big issue with the bullpen is they are being asked to do a lot. The main names being Hand and Maurer, who are being used very sporadically and not really filling any designated roles.
But the bad has to be — sorry Padres fans — this.
Oh dear, that’s bad. If you’re not familiar with wRC+ it essentially takes all offensive action and adjusts them depending on factors like park effects. It’s like an all encompassing AVG, OBP, SLG, but then adjusting them for many factors. The full descriptions are here.
Let us go back to Myers, wRC+ average for the league is 100. At it’s lowest, Myers was at 19. NINETEEN. That’s lower than the rough guide below actually goes.
Unlike, the next guy.
What went right?
Hunter Renfroe has a rolling wRC+ (10 games) of 199. One hundred and ninety nine. Holy shit balls, that’s good. His defence is still awful, although I keep hearing about his cannon arm. Like a medieval cannon, it’s bloody strong, but frightfully inaccurate. Anyway, less about his defence, he has finally stopped swinging at balls in the dirt! He now just needs to work out what to do on pitches up high.
The other thing to note this week was the latest OF to join the Padres, Franchy Cordero. Not only hitting well early on, but bagging a triple off Koji and the Cubs with serious speed, then sliding through the legs of Contreras, scoring the run and showing serious athleticism.
Perdomo was on cycle for a good start and went deeper than the average Padres starter, 7IP to really help the bullpen out.
Finally, Chase d’Arnaud looks like the happiest man in baseball.
What’s next?
Well seeing as the HILARIOUS Cubs (See Part 8) have left town, the Padres enjoyed a day off. Now they face a home series against the Rockies before another day off on Monday. Then it’s at the Diamondbacks before a home stand welcoming inter-league opponents KC Royals and then NL on NL action with the Reds coming to town.
12 games in total, I’m sticking my neck out and saying they got .500 in this period.
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? Is Hunter Renfroe a worse defensive outfielder than Hanley Ramirez? If you had a $99 for 5 Padres wins in June ticket, would you want them to keep losing?
You would get a maximum of 16 games. I would want them to win the last five.
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 – 22-33 .400
Individual Stats:
Batt Avg. Leader – W. Myers .265 (83rd)
OBP Leader – Y. Solarte .335 (92nd)
OPS Leader – W. Myers .810 (63rd)
Starter ERA – C. Richard 4.33 (52nd)
Strikeouts – C. Richard 50 (56th)
Relievers WHIP – B. Hand 0.91 (24th) *NEW*
Team Stats:
Batting AVG. – .221 (30th)
OBP – .288 (29th)
OPS – .657 (29th)
ERA (Starter) – 4.85 (27th)
ERA (Relievers) – 4.40 (20th)
Strikeouts – 445 (13th)
WHIP (Relievers) – 1.33 (16th)