Staying Afloat
For the San Diego Padres, the beginning of the 2021 season is more about finding ways to win than dominating.
As a long-suffering Padres fan, I headed into this season confused. How was this team of lovable losers going to become a dominant force in baseball? And how was I going to adjust my own expectations and emotions while watching them?
I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surely, it couldn’t be this dramatic of a shift. Surely, the Padres couldn’t go from terrible to great in less than two seasons. That’s not how this happens, right?
Well, due to some unfortunate luck (or maybe it’s just the baseball gods trying to make things easier for us), the Padres are not a dominant force yet.
That much was evident last night, when Yu Darvish exited after giving up just 1 run in 6 innings with no chance at getting the win. Aaron Sanchez, the Giants’ soft-tossing 5th starter, and someone named Reyes Moronta had combined to match Darvish for 6 innings. Despite the Padres putting lots guys on base (literally every hitter besides Profar got a hit), they were really struggling to get any of them home.
What’s missing
The version of the Padres that we all dreamt about isn’t here, right now. We haven’t seen it yet, and we won’t for at least a month. Here are the injured players that are waiting patiently for their bodies to heal so they can come and make a major impact on this team:
Fernando Tatis, Jr.
Trent Grisham
Austin Nola
Dinelson Lamet
Austin Adams
Pierce Johnson
The team’s starting shortstop, center fielder, and catcher being out would be enough to derail any team. Now make it the best player on the team and the gold glove center fielder (without any real backup on the roster), and it gets worse. Add in the Cy Young candidate from last season, the best bullpen arm from last season, and a potential closer for this team…..and you start to see what I mean about “staying afloat”.
Mike Clevinger is not on the list above because he’s expected to miss this season. The six names above are all expected back on the field in the next month or so. The Padres just have to make sure things don’t go sideways in the meantime.
Finding opportunities
The Padres won last night, moving to 4-2 on the season and staying above .500, and there’s two reasons for it.
One, the pitching was spectacular. From Darvish’s great start to three perfect innings from Keone Kela (W), Emilio Pagan (H) and Mark Melancon (S), the Giants offense had nothing for the Padres on this night.
Two, Victor Caratini found a moment.
Caratini blasted that ball into the seats and erased all of the men left on base earlier in the game, and kept the Padres afloat for another day.
What’s next?
Today is the rubber match between the Padres and Giants. I don’t want to say that it’s a ‘must-win game’ because that’s awfully stupid in a season of 162 of them, but the Padres should absolutely throw everything they have at this one in an attempt to win the series heading into their day off, a travel day to Texas to face the Rangers on Friday.
None of the bullpen arms should be too taxed after last night (Pagan threw the most pitches of the group, 13) and the relievers have been nothing but spectacular so far this year. While I’m hopeful for a good game from Blake Snell, Tingler shouldn’t be afraid to pull Snell in the 5th inning again and open up the bullpen door to a long line of dart throwers. Just like he shouldn’t be afraid to empty his bench, and none of his starters (save Caratini) should need a rest day.