Snell and Cronenworth prove their mettle
If you squint, it might appear that the San Diego Padres are rounding into form for the stretch run of the 2021 MLB season.
The Padres won a series!
I know this is a dumb thing to celebrate, but I’m looking for momentum in the right direction for these San Diego Padres and a series win is definitely that.
If you’re wondering when was the last time the Padres won a series, it was about a month ago in Washington DC, and it included a game that was suspended due to nearby gunshots.
That can change, though! The following series is still tied 1-1, with the Padres holding a 5-4 lead over the Braves in the 5th inning of the rubber match. In a couple of weeks, the Padres will have a chance to win that series, too.
And, to be fair, the Padres haven’t been losing series. They split a couple of short series with the Oakland A’s and split a long series with the Colorado Rockies. They also split one in Miami against the Marlins.
As a matter of fact, the last time the Padres lost a series was before the all-star break, against the Colorado Rockies. In case you’re wondering, and I was, the Padres are 8-8 against the lowly Rockies this season. They’re also 2-2 against the Marlins, but have pretty much taken care of business the rest of the season the way that you would expect.
Preller was right!
I talked about this last week, but we’re now a solid week removed from A.J. Preller saying the following:
“We have starters that we believe in,” said Preller in the aftermath of the deadline. “We could’ve added a starting pitcher, but if the other four or five guys don’t pitch like they’re capable of, honestly, it’s not going to matter. We feel like we have enough from a starting pitching standpoint.”
I took that as a direct call-out of the three guys that he had traded for in the offseason: Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, and Joe Musgrove. He wasn’t going to clean up their mess. They had to be better.
Darvish has had two starts since then, one against the Rockies where he was excellent except for all the home runs given up (that’s a joke but also not untrue) and another against the Diamondbacks where he was excellent without exception.
Musgrove will get his second start since Preller’s challenge tonight, but his first one went for 6 innings while giving up just 1 run.
But today, we’re here to talk about Blake Snell. In his two starts since Preller’s quote, he’s done the following:
5 IP, 1 R, 6 K, 3 BB (at Oakland)
7 IP, 0 R, 13 K, 3 BB (vs. Arizona)
I was just talking about Snell’s weird splits this season. I had, jokingly, started responded to any criticism of Snell by saying “He’s a great pitcher as long as the game he’s pitching in is being played at Petco Park at night.”
Well, that’s one good start on the road in Oakland and one great start during a day game at home. Snell is throwing more fastballs, being more aggressive, and generally looking like the guy the Padres thought they were getting when they traded for him.
The Padres used the deadline to get some insurance against collapse or injury from Mark Melancon, Trent Grisham, and Fernando Tatis Jr. Then the GM explained that what they needed was not new starters, but for their starters to start acting like themselves. It seems to have worked. In the last five starts from his prized starters, his playoff rotation, the Padres have gotten four quality starts.
Cronenworth gets in the conversation
I unabashedly love Jake Cronenworth. He’s a defensive stud no matter where you put him on the infield, and his bat never seems to cool off. He also hits LHP and RHP almost exactly the same, which was not true last season.
Cronenworth is better at home than on the road, a quirky trait shared by most of the other hitters on the team despite playing in a pitcher’s park, and he has an OPS of 2.333 in the rare occasions that he gets a day off and comes in as a pinch hitter.
This season, Jake the Rake has played 89 games at 2B, 16 games at 1B, and now 10 games at SS. His versatility and selflessness is exactly what you need on a championship team, and he’s going to be incredibly cheap during his prime years because of how late he made it to the majors.
And don’t blame him for the team’s inability to beat the Rockies, he’s got an OPS over 1.000 against them this year.
I’d like to talk about this tweet for a minute. If you listen to the Padres Hot Tub podcast, you probably already know what’s coming.
Jake Cronenworth is absolutely an elite player. He has more fWAR than Manny Machado this year, which is to say he’s 2nd on the team behind only Fernando Tatis Jr.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking the Padres have two offensive stars, with a couple of others on the next tier below when they’re hot (Grisham, Nola, Pham, etc.), but that just isn’t true anymore. Cronenworth has proven himself. He’s the third star in the lineup with Machado and Tatis. He’s on that tier. He’s shown it all year long after showing it for almost his entire rookie campaign. There’s no reason to believe there’s regression coming any time soon.
And Cronenworth’s ability to play anywhere is what might eventually make the Adam Frazier trade work. It’s also why the team feels comfortable letting Tatis take some defensive lessons in CF, either for short-term or long-term experimentation with him as an outfielder. But it’s his relentless production as an offensive player that might make Cronenworth the most valuable, dollar-for-dollar, player in all of baseball.