Good morning from Toronto,
What is happening here?
The Padres are batting .212 and have scored three runs over the past four games.
My game story (here) explains the big problem lies in the middle of the batting order.
We will talk more about that later.
But first, I took far too much time to go back and research how many World Series teams had hit .212 or lower over the course of four games at any point during the season they won the title.
And, no surprise, every single one of them going back to 1903 endured such a stretch. All except the 1923 and ‘27 Yankees endured multiple such stretches.
But just 10 of those 120 championship teams were also held to as few as three runs in that span of four games. That was the 2002 Angels, 2001 Diamondbacks, 1964 Cardinals, 1933 New York Giants and six teams before 1917.
Run production is a problem for the Padres.
Until recently, they have lived up to their mantra of finding a way to score one more run than the other team. Their ability to manufacture runs and pressure other teams into mistakes and capitalize on opportunities is impressive and exciting. And it should be an advantage in the playoffs, because playoff baseball generally turns less on slug than pitching and small ball.
That will be great … if they make the playoffs.
This brings me to what is arguably the Padres’ biggest current limitation.
They don’t slug.
So when they don’t string together hits, they can’t produce runs.
This losing streak has certainly shown what home runs can do for a team. The other teams, in this case.
The Mariners hit six homers in the series at Petco Park over the weekend, ing for eight of their 15 runs. And all three Blue Jays runs last night came on two homers.
The Padres have hit five home runs in the eight games since they hit five in their 21-0 victory over the Rockies at Coors Field on May 10. For the season, their 41 home runs are sixth fewest in the major leagues. Just 28.6% of their runs have been driven in by homers, the second-lowest ratio in MLB.
I talked to Shildt about the lack of home runs before yesterday’s game.
“You look at the whole picture of total offense, and slug is certainly a part of it,” Shildt said. “And you can argue it is 1A. But if you look at the total picture of it — on-base percentage and runners in scoring position, which outside of this past series has been (good), we’re a swinging kind of club, we don’t strike out. All those things lead to a productive offense.
“The last piece, the slug, I do think there is going to be a little bit of something has to go somewhere. … We’re selling out for having complete hitters, complete offense. We want to do what the game calls for. If we sold out for slug, I can promise you we’d have higher slug — at the expense of more strikeouts, lower average, all that.”
Yeah, but …
The occasional homer would be nice. (And by the way, Shildt was not denying that.)
Without more home runs, the Padres are up a creek when the bulk of their lineup does not paddle the way it has normally done.
Not themselves
Here is what a slugless offense that also can’t string together singles looks like:
- The Padres have struck out every 4.6 plate appearances the past four games. That is slightly off their MLB-best rate of once every 5.5 plate appearances previously.
- They have walked five times in 138 plate appearances the past four games. That is a 3.6% rate. They are not a big walking team, but they were doing so at a middle-of-the-pack rate of 8.9% through 41 games.
- They have gone at least eight innings without scoring in three of their past four games after doing so just twice in their first 41 games.
- They were 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position last night and are hitless in 24 at-bats in that circumstance since the start of the Mariners series. They were batting .282 with runners in scoring position through 41 games.
- They have put the lead-off runner on in just six of 36 innings (a .167 on-base percentage) the past four games. The first Padres batter in an inning had a .337 OBP through 41 games.
Take out Luis Arraez going 6-for-15, and the rest of the lineup is batting .188 in the four games. Take out Xander Bogaerts going 4-for-14 also, and that drops it to a .175 average.
The team that moves the line so well is not moving the line.
We can lament catchers Martín Maldonado and Elias Díaz being 2-for-14. We can wonder how long Jason Heyward is going to last, even as he is the only one of the three guys who have played in left field the past four games to get a hit. (That position, too, has produced a 2-for-14 during this skid.)
But, fact is, the heart of the order is at the heart of the problem.
Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill are 2-for-30 over the past four games. Merrill has both hits.
Those are the main two drivers of the team.
Yes, Fernando Tatis Jr. is paramount as well. And he has been in something of a funk for more than two weeks, batting .224 (13-for-58) over the past 14 games. He was 1-for-4 last night and is 4-for-16 over the past four games.
At least he homered Sunday and has 12 home runs on the season. But batting leadoff, his production can be limited by what the bottom of the order is doing. He has come to the plate with a runner on base three times in the past four games and gone 1-for-3.
Merrill is 0-for-5 with a runner on over the four games. Machado is 0-for-6.
This has to be said, because it is true: The Mariners threw good pitcher after good pitcher at the Padres. And Chris Bassitt, who went six innings last night, is a good pitcher.
“You just gotta tip your cap,” Machado said. “They’re throwing the ball well. … We had some opportunities, we didn’t execute. So just is what it is.”
Yes, to some extent.
But the Padres need to be better than this.
This is troubling. It has laid bare the issue of them being core-dependent and what can happen when the core does not produce.
And when home runs are so difficult to come by.
“I feel like we’ve got the best version of what an offense looks like,” Shildt said after last night’s game. “And that’s the ability to have consistent at-bats regardless of type of pitcher, and we put the ball in play, and we do a lot of things that are really good, and that’s all we can do. … And when you get good pitching and you have close games, it really is a matter of if you hit some balls at people, you don’t get the proverbial timely hit. But I do know, if we continue to do what we’ve done, and we will, and that’s stack on as many quality at-bats as we can … then this too shall sooner than later.”
Cease streaking
Save for a fastball he left over the middle of the plate to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a slider he hung to Anthony Santander, both of which got hit over the wall, Dylan Cease was spectacular.
He allowed three hits and walked one in a season-high seven innings.
“It was pretty good,” Cease said. “My biggest regret is the slider down the middle to Santander. But other than that, it was a pretty good night. … I like where I’m at. For the most part, filling up the zone. Frustrated, really just one mistake really got me, but it’s part of the game.”
Cease has arguably the best slider in the game when it is working as it normally does. It was not really doing that consistently his first seven starts. It very much has been the past three, as he has allowed a total of five runs on nine hits over 20⅓ innings.
Here is a look at those three starts versus his first seven:
Rotation equation + Yu
Yu Darvish did not make the trip to Toronto but is expected to meet the team in Atlanta at the end of the week.
You can read my story (here) from yesterday afternoon on where Darvish is at in of his possible return to the mound.
In short, no one knows when he will make his season debut. But it could be soon. Or maybe not. That is up to Darvish. Read the story.
At this point, if Darvish does not return before then, the Padres are planning to go with a five-man rotation at least through their May 29 day off and possibly through June 3.
That means every starter except Michael King will pitch once on four days’ rest between now and May 28. Then, if they stay on turn and are still without Darvish, all five starters could pitch on five days’ rest to take them through June 3.
At that point, given that their next day off will be June 12, they will almost certainly go to a six-man rotation. They will likely stay with six starters at least through July 2 because, as the calendar below shows, the Padres don’t have many days off in the month leading up to that.
As for this run of nine straight games, the real concern could be the bullpen.
So Cease did the Padres a solid last night.
“Always nice to get seven innings out of your starter,” Shildt said, “especially when you’re starting a stretch of games.”
Tidbits
No. No. No.
No tidbits today.
Are you kidding?
OK, I will give you one: Four of the past eight quality starts by Padres pitchers have come in games the team has lost.
That’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.
