The Padres need Luke Voit

The guy that was supposed to be the driving force in the Padres offense with Tatis out has struggled to find his swing. An offensive turnaround for the team will need to start with Voit.

The San Diego Padres have played 11 games and are sitting at 6-5 while they welcome the 2-8 Cincinnati Reds to town. And even though they have had to call in Nabil Crismatt for mop-up duty twice already, and had to start MacKenzie Gore in place of Blake Snell, and Mike Clevinger is pitching in the minor leagues…the pitching has still been pretty good for San Diego.

Their issue, to this point, has been the offense. More specifically, it’s been the consistency of the offense. Luke Voit, whom the Padres traded for during spring training to take over as their designated hitter, was supposed to help with that.

This is Voit’s sixth season in MLB, although he’s already on his third team, and he is currently putting up numbers that don’t even come close to comparing to any other season he’s played since making it to the bigs.

Before getting a day off to clear his head yesterday, Voit had played in all 10 of the Padres regular-season games and struck out in 7 of them. He has multiple strikeouts in 5 of those games. He’s yet to hit a HR, although he does have a double, and all 4 of his RBIs came across just two games.

Luke Voit has had three good games with the Padres, in my opinion. Here they are:

1-3, BB, HBP, 2 K (4-2 W over SFG)
1-2, 3 BB (10-5 W over ARI)
2-5, 3 RBI, R (12-1 W over ATL)

In all of those games, Voit managed to get on base for half or more of his PAs. Even though he hasn’t found his power stroke yet, this is how he has found a way to be productive in the Padres lineup.

It’s no mistake that the team has scored well in the games where he has been effective and has struggled to put up runs in the games where he hasn’t. Until Fernando Tatis Jr. comes back, Voit might be the most important piece of the Padres lineup.

Hitting 4th or 5th in every appearance, Voit is where rallies tend to get going or die. There’s a reason it’s called the clean up spot in the order.

For all the work the Padres have put into their offense, they still lead the league in strikeouts. The two biggest offenders, tied with 14, are Luke Voit and Trent Grisham. Grish has had the benefit of 7 more ABs to reach that mark.

Except for his first year with the Yankees, Voit has never really been a high strikeout guy. Right now, his strikeouts per plate appearance are as high as they’ve ever been in his entire career, although so are his walks per plate appearance, and his ISO numbers are off the chart bad.

Everything about what is happening tells us that it’s a slump, Voit is pressing too hard to make an impact with his new team and impress his new bosses, and that eventually he’ll start turning these strikeouts into bombs. However, until that happens, the Padres are going to struggle to put up more than 1 or 2 runs per game consistently.

Series Preview: Cincinnati Reds at San Diego Padres

San Diego Padres
6-5 overall
Last series: Tied 2-2 with Atlanta Braves

Cincinnati Reds
2-8 overall
Last series: Lost 0-4 to Los Angeles Dodgers

Monday: Sean Manaea vs. Nick Lodolo
Tuesday: Joe Musgrove vs. Reiver Sanmartin
Wednesday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Vladimir Guitierrez

The Reds are a lot of yikes right now. Their lineup doesn’t seem to have anything, even Joey Votto’s numbers have fallen off a cliff, and their two best starting pitchers are on the IL heading into this series.

The Dodgers are a good team, but they steamrolled the Reds. The series score was 26-7 and the Dodgers never scored more than 9 runs. Until the Padres figure out how to hit more consistently to match their already strong pitching, they will gladly accept a series against a scuffling team like Cincinnati.

One of the issues with Padres teams of recent years was their inability to bank wins against lesser opponents, while the opposite has historically been a trademark of teams managed by Bob Melvin. This will be a great test to see if the Padres can bank a couple of wins early in the season while still ironing out some of their own issues.

Early heads up

This is the first season in which I’ve been writing Bandwagon Beach while also holding down a full-time job and doing everything that we’ve been doing with the Padres Hot Tub podcast. To say that it has already been overwhelming might be underselling it.

But I still enjoy writing it, and the feedback is always positive, so I think it’s time that I start looking into options for turning paid subscriptions on here. Having Bandwagon Beach be tied to my financials will make it easier to get out of bed in the morning to write it, and gives me hope that one day I can make this my full-time job.

Anyway, this is a warning. It might come later this week or the week after. I’m trying to find a way, within Substack’s system, to make the price point something that is easy enough for someone to afford and well-worth the investment. There will still be some content available to those with free subscriptions, but you’ll need to pay to get the full experience.

I hope you’ll still stick with me on this journey, wherever it may take me, as I continue to write about the San Diego Padres (and maybe some other things).