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?
Well, after such a promising series for the last Tuckin’ Hell, it’s back to losing. This time the Padres went 1-5 against some tough opposition in the Rockies and the D’Backs. We saw some action from Solarte, some bumbling from Schimpf in the field and finally everyone’s favourite Medieval Cannon Armed RF, Hunter Renfroe showcased some strong hitting performances.
What went wrong?
Schimpf is terrible in the field and can only hit HR or walk. There, that’s out the way.
Now, back to the graphs.
Wil Myers is still bad, he’s in a really big slump right now with his K rate going up to 42.2% (15-game rolling %) in recent weeks. If he was mashing homers or he was collecting walks when he wasn’t striking out then there wouldn’t be too much worry. But he’s not really doing that.
Definitely one to watch this year, maybe next time I’ll look if he had such a slump last season or any other season for that matter.
The starting rotation continues to struggle to go any distance to help the bullpen out again. The first game of this review, the Rockies 8-5 win, Clayton Richard went 5.2 innings. After that it was a strong 6.0 from Chacin — who was pretty unlucky to end up with 3 ER against him — then a bullpen meltdown. Cosart went 4.0, Lamet 3.0 and finally Perdomo 4.0. This then exposes a weak bullpen, well I say weak, it’s half weak.
What went right?
Half the bullpen is good. I mean, it’s not fantastic, but it’s actually half a decent bullpen. The other half is pretty bad and there to mop-up the mess the starters sometimes leave.
This table is sorted by FIP for all relievers that have pitched over 10 innings this season. What a strange coincidence that those who have a low FIP have a good WAR line. Those with a high FIP have a poor WAR line. Note Maurers high ERA, that would suggest he’s bad, but he isn’t actually bad. He’s been pretty unlucky at times. Look at his BB/9 for goodness sake, 1.88! We all know which half is good and which half is bad and because each half seems to be stuck in a cycle of “Well, the starter has held them to 2 runs and our offence have 3 runs, looks like it’s Hand, Maurer and Yates going into finish this one off.”
Maybe Andy Green could consider mixing Hand, Maurer and Yates into the bad half of the pen to try and give the offence a chance to come back? Because as soon a Diaz or Craig Stammen come trotting out the pen, the team know Andy Green is giving it up. I suppose you must have belief that your hitting can do that and sometimes, this offence cannot.
The Padres are 4th in team relief pitching strikeouts. FOURTH. I suppose some of that does come down to the amount of innings they are being asked to throw (Thanks Darius Austin), but hey, it’s still good.
What’s next?
The Padres are about to play their final game against the D’Backs as I write this, then it’s a series against the Royals at home. I’m betting right now we’ll see 4 out of 4 wins for the Padres.
Ok, maybe 2 out of 4.
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 home wins in June ticket, would you want them to keep losing?
Only one win so far at home in June, four more to go!
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 – 23-37 .383
Individual Stats:
Batt Avg. Leader – M. Margot .259 (95th) *NEW* (Been on the DL for over a week now.)
OBP Leader – Y. Solarte .325 (103rd)
OPS Leader – W. Myers .787 (78th)
Starter ERA – C. Richard 4.36 (49th)
Strikeouts – J. Chacin 56 (49th)
Relievers WHIP – B. Hand 0.97 (37th)
Team Stats:
Batting AVG. – .221 (30th)
OBP – .285 (30th)
OPS – .659 (29th)
ERA (Starter) – 5.10 (28th)
ERA (Relievers) – 4.36 (20th)
Strikeouts – 498 (12th)
WHIP (Relievers) – 1.33 (16th)