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?
We’re going to go a little different for this edition.
The Padres lost a series to the Cubs 2-1, they are winning a series against the Tigers 2-0 with their final game happening tonight. There were some good and bad points throughout those games including:
- Renfroe has gone from swishing through pitches low in the zone, to being a walk guy, to now swinging through pitches high in the zone.
- Solarte has been placed on the DL. Sad news for the “tank” and sad news for those that want to see Solarte having fun in SoCal.
- The Miguel Diaz Bullpen Mega start actually went better than we thought.
But more importantly, I want to talk Anthony Rizzo, Austin Hedges, the slide, idiotic comments from one dugout and brilliant comments from another.
What went wrong?
Lets look at what was wrong with the slide.
If you have been living under a rock and haven’t seen this moment, here it is.
Rizzo made no effort to deviate from hitting Hedges. There is no doubt in that, watching the video and looking at the stills.
I made a diagram: pic.twitter.com/Yvmh9HUfo3
— Sac Bunt Chris (@SacBuntChris) June 20, 2017
Here is another thing that was wrong, what Joe Maddon said.
“You don’t see it anymore because the runner thinks he has to avoid (the catcher) — he doesn’t,” Maddon said. “If the guy’s in the way, you’re still able to hit him.
“I’d much prefer what Riz did tonight. What he did was right, absolutely right. There’s nothing wrong with that and nobody can tell me differently.”
I’m 100% with Maddon…on the first paragraph. After that, he is completely wrong. I don’t need to rehash what has already been said, Hedges wasn’t blocking.
So what else was wrong? Well, we kind of need to talk about what went right and then come back to this.
What went right?
Andy Green is a young manager, young managers generally are seen as free thinking and open to suggestions and changing the ways of old.
He did exactly that with the slide. FINALLY, we are seeing a shift from the utter bullshit we saw earlier in the season between the Orioles and the Red Sox.
When asked if the team would retaliate against Rizzo and the Cubs, Green said:
What do you accomplish by hitting somebody? You accomplish nothing. You put a man on first base, and you give them a chance to win a baseball game. You don’t, all of a sudden, gain the high, moral ground because you chose to retaliate. You don’t, all of a sudden, get to pound your chest because you were man enough to throw a ball at somebodys back. I think its absolutely asinine to even take that approach.
Chacin backed this up by saying:
(Green) told me he talked with MLB, and they were thinking about (issuing) warnings before the game, he said he gave MLB his word that we won’t hit (Rizzo) on purpose. We wanted to pitch inside because that’s the way you have to pitch him. You see yesterday: I was trying to throw a pitch away, and he hit it out. If you let him extend his arms, he’s good. So (Green) just told me he gave MLB his word and asked me not to hit (Rizzo) on purpose and the best way to handle that was to get him out.
This was an absolute breath of fresh air compared to the old school crap we have been treated to in baseball.
So, now we need to go back to what went wrong.
What went wrong (again)?
Some of the Padres faithful are now saying the Padres are soft.
Crap, they aren’t soft, what they are is sensible, they are ADULTS. They aren’t taking a manageable situation and making a freeking giant hill out of it. I can’t remember which baseball analyst who always says — when asked about bean balling — “Explain it to a 5-year-old and see if it sounds right”. It doesn’t, it sounds like utter crap, it’s idiotic and childish to consider.
Some of the Padres faithful are now saying teams will beat up on the Padres as they know they won’t be retaliated against.
Teams are going to beat up on the 31-44 Padres? The team that — according to Fangraphs — have 0% chance of making the playoffs? They aren’t a rival, they aren’t a threat, why the hell would teams now crank up the heat and start hitting them hard? If this somehow does happen, I’m sure MLB will be quick to clamp down on those asshats doing it.
Andy Green has started the wheels in motion for other managers (John Farrell, take note of this) to get control of his players and stop using baseballs as weapons against defenceless individuals. “Self-policing” is dying, the fans and the players as younger generations take over will not stand for this. This is the all part of the changes coming in baseball folks, if you’re not happy and think baseball is going soft, then GTFO of here, go watch a macho sport like UFC where they are allowed to beat the crap out of each other. I for one, can’t stand fighting sports and I won’t be joining you.
What’s next?
No more talking about slides, thats for sure.
Detroit tonight, hoping for the 3rd sweep of the season, off day and then the Atlanta Braves come to Petco.
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? I’m done with this part of Tuckin’ Hell.
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 – 31-44 .413
Individual Stats:
Batt Avg. Leader – Y. Solarte .268 (86th) *NEW*
OBP Leader – Y. Solarte .349 (63rd)
OPS Leader – W. Myers .799 (76th)
Starter ERA – C. Richard 4.20 (39th)
Strikeouts – J. Chacin 72 (39th)
Relievers WHIP –B. Hand 1.03 (41st) *NEW*
Team Stats:
Batting AVG – .226 (30th)
OBP – .294 (30th)
OPS – .678 (29th)
ERA (Starter) – 4.80 (22nd)
ERA (Relievers) – 4.63 (24th)
Strikeouts – 623 (13th)
WHIP (Relievers) – 1.30 (13th)