A frustrating night at the ballpark
An injury to the Padres' best player and some weird managerial calls made the loss sting even more.
Please be okay
This was painful to watch.
Best case scenario is that this is more of the minor issues in Tatis’ shoulder that the team said they knew about when he walked out of a game last week.
We’ll find out more today after he undergoes an MRI. So far, this is as much as the team is willing to say:
This is an update from a previous tweet, which said the same thing but stated that it was a “partial” subluxation.
I did say, somewhere between his contract being signed and the beginning of the season, that the only question Fernando Tatis Jr. still had to answer was if he could play an entire MLB season without getting injured. I think he’ll get there, but this is a particularly rough start to trying to answer that question.
Tingler’s growing pains
Perhaps the Padres got lucky last year, with their very inexperienced manager being gifted the DH rule in his first season. And it would appear that he’ll have the DH rule to lean on again in the future, which is great news….because he does not understand hitting pitchers.
Or, rather, he does not understand that pitchers can’t hit. He also seems to have fallen into the trap of Craig Stammen. It seems every manager that gets Stammen on their team immediately falls in love with him, using him far beyond what is justified with his performance, and Tingler has found a really weird way of making this true.
For the second time in 5 games, Craig Stammen threw on a batting helmet and got in the batter’s box for the Padres last night. This is (kind of ) weird. He had zero plate appearances in 2020 and just 1 in all of 2019. He’s on pace for around 60 plate appearances this season, which would be a career high.
However, dig deeper into Craig Stammen’s history and you’ll find out some things…
One, he started his career as a starting pitcher before transitioning to the bullpen (cough). This answers why, weird as it may seem, Craig Stammen has become the “long man” in the Padres. We assumed Ryan Weathers had that role, but my guess is they’re keeping him on a once-every-5-days rhythm to make it easier to insert him into the rotation later.
Two, Stammen’s actually an okay hitter that has gotten used similar to this before in his career.
The funniest thing about this chart to me is you can see Stammen talking Andy Green into using him this way in 2017, then hitting .500 that season, and then it not happening any more after that.
When push comes to shove, Craig Stammen should never be hitting. Even if he hits well for a pitcher, or a relief pitcher, I’d rather the team find a way to get a professional hitter at the plate.
Even if that means (hot take incoming) occasionally pinch-hitting with your backup catcher. I know, I know. Old baseball rules say you never ever do this. “What if you catcher gets hurt?!?”
First of all, that happens so rarely that you’re wasting a valuable resource 100% of the time in preparation for something that happens 1% of the time.
Secondly, it’s okay to just toss games aside. “Welp, we used up our whole bullpen and now our starting catcher is hurt. Let’s just get through it and we’ll try again tomorrow.” There’s 162 of these things. Even the best teams lose about 50 of them.
In that vein, you literally have an emergency catcher on your roster already:
Would it be the end of the world if Wil Myers had to catch a couple of innings? No. It also probably wouldn’t happen (I think Phil Nevin, as the team’s emergency catcher, caught about 4 innings during his time in San Diego).
Would I rather see Luis Campusano hitting than Craig Stammen in the late innings of a close game when the team is trying to make a furious comeback? I would!
Important game tonight
The now 3-2 Padres play the Giants tonight and tomorrow afternoon, and their roster is already feeling a bit strained due to these injuries:
Trent Grisham
Austin Nola
Pierce Johnson
Austin Adams
Dinelson Lamet
Fernando Tatis Jr.
If they want to avoid dropping an early series to a division opponent, that Padres need to win both of these games, starting with tonight. Yu Darvish is the ace of this staff and they’ll need him to stop the (two-game) losing streak.