A rough start (or finish)

The Padres let a very winnable game against the Diamondbacks fall through their fingers and turn into a devastating loss, with a crushing injury to boot. Who is to blame and what can be done?

Allow me to revisit a few things before we dive in. Here’s what I wrote yesterday:

I’m not going to say the AZ & SEA series are must-win series for the Padres, but it would be incredibly disappointing if they didn’t at least split them both. I don’t want to pin my hopes on anything positive happening against the Dodgers without the two biggest bats in the lineup.

WELP. The Padres now need to win today’s game just to escape this two-game series against the Diamondbacks with a split, after dropping a game last night.

I hate to be that guy, but last night’s very embarrassing game (where the Padres turned a 6-0 lead in the 7th into a 7-6 loss) is on Bob Melvin and the bullpen.

First of all, let’s talk about Melvin. His insistence on tinkering, matched with Manny Machado’s absence from the lineup, has resulted in one of the silliest things I think I’ve seen from Melvin.

Jurickson Profar has posted a .883 OPS in the leadoff spot and was the main catalyst for the offense taking off a few weeks ago. After Melvin came back, Profar bounced out of the #1 spot on Thursday and it seemed to have an immediate impact on his offense. He went back the leading off for the next three games before hitting 2nd last night.

Neither Profar nor the team offense is necessarily to blame for the team’s loss last night (6 runs should be enough), but I fail to see the logic in moving Profar down to get Trent Grisham back in the leadoff spot. Grish went 0-4 with a walk. Profar went 1-4 with a walk. They were lucky they got such good offense from Jorge Alfaro and Nomar Mazara, otherwise that decision would’ve been a bigger deal.

Instead, the decision everyone will talk about is the very long hook of Bob Melvin. He left in his starter (Sean Manaea) too long, left in Tim Hill and Luis Garcia in for too long in relief, and needed to have Taylor Rogers throw 33 pitches to give the team a chance of leaving as victors.

Each Padres pitcher gave up an earned run last night. Not one of them was able to hold the vaunted Diamondbacks offense scoreless. And it didn’t take long for the Padres’ manager to run out of answers for how to deal with it.

Oh, and Jorge Alfaro left the game with a knee injury. He has arguably been the team’s most important offensive player with Machado out, and now he’ll likely be out for a while. Little by little, the 2022 Padres are really losing every good offensive piece that they have.