3 Things: Padres 8, Diamondbacks 7
Looking back at how the Padres handled business on MLB Opening Day.
This is my way of recapping a game. I likely won’t recap all 162 games, but since this was the first one and an important one, I thought I’d give it a shot.
Here are three things that I felt were worth pointing out after the San Diego Padres started out their season with an 8-7 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks:
The key is the depth
The San Diego Padres won with their offense, which is obvious when your team scores 8 runs and only wins by 1, but that offense was not led by their stars.
Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. combined to go 1-10 with 4 Ks. They were the #2 and #3 hitters. The leadoff hitter, Tommy Pham, finished 1-4 with a strikeout as well. That’s a combined batting average around .142 for the top third of the Padres order.
It was the 4-through-8 hitters in the San Diego lineup that really did some damage, and that’s vitally important. Tatis and/or Machado are not going to be offensive behemoths every game, and knowing that the team can score a bunch of runs without them is one reason why nobody doubts the seriousness of the Padres’ championship aspirations.
Here were the offensive stars of the game:
Eric Hosmer: 3-4, HR, 3 RBI (triple shy of a cycle)
Wil Myers: 1-3, HR, BB, RBI
Jake Cronenworth: 2-2, 2 BB, 3 runs
Victor Caratini: 2-4, 3 RBI
Yu runs out of gas
After not throwing more than 50 pitches in a spring training game, Yu Darvish understandably started to tire in the 5th inning when he was north of 80 pitches thrown in this game.
With a 5-run lead, Jayce Tingler let Darvish stay in to be in line for a win, and a couple of batters later the 5-run lead turned into a 2-run lead and Tim Hill on the mound.
The 7.71 ERA that Darvish will carry into his next start is meaningless, a sign of the team being a little too cautious with his innings in spring training more than a sign of ineffectiveness. While he did labor a bit, Darvish gave up just 1 run in 4 innings and looked fine overall.
Comeback kids
The Padres led the majors in comeback wins in 2020 and they’re off to another great start in 2021. Even when the team fell behind 7-6, I had full confidence that the Padres would score more runs and keep the Diamondbacks from scoring any more.
The reason for my confidence? A pretty incredible amount of talent in the bullpen.
Tim Hill doesn’t deserve a ton of praise here, because he became completely unraveled when things didn’t go well, but his job was to come in and get one guy out and that guy grounded a ball to Tatis that should’ve been an easy out if not for an airmailed throw. As a result, Tim Hill and every other pitcher who pitched in relief for the Padres finished with the same ERA - 0.00.
After Hill came Keone Kela (28 career saves), who gave up 1 hit and no runs. After Kela came Emilio Pagan (22 career saves), who set them down in order with a perfect inning. After Pagan came Drew Pomeranz (9 career saves), who gave up a hit but also struck out the side. Finally, Mark Melancon came in to pitch a 1-2-3 final inning and get the save, the 205th of his career.
The Padres are going to win a lot of close games this year, and many of them will be come-from-behind wins where they grab in the lead in the final innings, and it will all be made possible by this lockdown bullpen put together by A.J. Preller.