The Padres' B-Team Sweep!
The San Diego Padres overcame one of their toughest challenges of the season by sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals without some of their best players.
The San Diego Padres are in the midst of a COVID-19 crisis, one that has sidelined five of their most important hitters and decimated their lineup, and you wouldn’t know it from watching them. The team is 5-1 since losing the following players to positive tests and contact tracing:
Fernando Tatis, Jr.
Eric Hosmer
Wil Myers
Jurickson Profar
Jorge Mateo
When that news broke, I wrote that the team should be able to survive against the lowly Rockies (they very nearly swept them in Colorado and welcome them to Petco Park tonight) but would likely get beat up by the St. Louis Cardinals.
Instead, guys like Patrick Kivlehan and Ivan Castillo and Tucupita Marcano found ways to help the Padres sweep the Cardinals. This isn’t the high point of the season, that’s the Dodgers series in Los Angeles, but it’s a sign that the Padres might be ready to play at a high level even when they’re not playing the Dodgers.
Patience pays off
I have some theories about whether or not MLB has panicked and put last year’s baseball back in play and how that’s affecting things, but the driving force behind the San Diego offense over the weekend was good old fashioned base-on-balls.
The Padres were walked an absolutely absurd 26 times over three games. If you’re wondering how that looks compared to a normal team in a normal series, the Padres walked the Cardinals hitters 9 times over three games.
Part of the walks were a symptom of the Cardinals pitchers just losing control of the strike zone, but the Padres certainly went in with a game plan to work the count and try and get to the rickety St. Louis bullpen.
If you’ve read or seen Moneyball, you know that walks lead to runs, just like hits. Those 26 runs helped the Padres drive in 23 runs over three games, easily the most the team has scored in a three-game series so far this season.
The Padres also got to the Cardinals bullpen, which was terrible, early on. Johan Oviedo lasted 2 innings, Kwang Hyun Kim lasted 3.1, and Adam Wainwright lasted 4 (but gave up 6 ER along the way).
We saw this last season. When the Padres offense is really clicking, it’s fueled by walks and opening up that bullpen door early. I’ll be interested to see if it holds against the Rockies and if it can continue when the missing hitters return.
Pitching steps up
The hitters get all the headlines, but the Padres are one-half game out of 1st place in the NL West because their pitching has been great. It’s been great all season long, really, but it’s getting even better now as everyone finds their groove.
Joe Musgrove got his first win since the no-hitter, giving up just 1 run over 5 innings, and looked better than he had in a while. The bullpen was great behind him, with the exception of Emilio Pagan.
Chris Paddack pulled out another really good start, his third in a row, and looks fixed. He went 4 innings and gave up just 1 run, just barely topping Ryan Weathers, who gave up 2 runs in the 1st inning of game 3 before pitching three more scoreless innings. Weathers was followed by Dinelson Lamet, who was throwing in the upper-90s with a biting slider we haven’t seen since 2020.
The Padres bullpen seems like they’re about to lose Keone Kela, who is getting a second opinion on his forearm tightness, and are also playing without Drew Pomeranz at the moment. They’re not as strong as they once were, but the depth that was built there in the offseason is already paying off in May.
Trent Grisham, superstar
I’ve already written about how Trent Grisham is this team’s hidden superstar, but with some of the team’s other offensive stars out he had a chance to really shine in this series.
Game 1: 1-2, 3 BB, 1 R
Game 2: 3-5, 1 R
Game 3: 1-5, RBI
That’s a .416 batting average and an insane .533 on-base percentage from the leadoff hitter in the lineup. He also played some outstanding outfield, making at least one diving catch and looking like the 2020 Gold Glove winner that he is.
Grisham and now Jake Cronenworth lead the team in WAR, just like we all expected. It’s time to start salivating about what this team looks like if the Tatis/Myers/Machado powerhouse can get hot while Grisham and Cronenworth are still playing like this.
Up next: MORE
The Rockies are 3-7 in their last 10 games, and the Padres don’t want to miss an opportunity to get wins against a lesser opponent before their full lineup returns. Expect them to continue playing with both a high level of intensity and patience.
I’m expecting a win if not an actual sweep for a series at home, against a bad team, with Darvish-Snell-Musgrove pitching for the Padres. That is a crazy thing to say when you look at the roster right now (the new guys were patient and timely but didn’t exactly hit the snot out of the ball), but I’m sticking with it. Momentum is a crazy thing.