Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
The forecast is looking grim
Cover photo credit: @AlexColores760
The second half of the season started with a bang, or actually two bangs: Sanchez and Tatis homered to give the Padres a 3-0 over the Phillies in game one of a four game NLCS rematch. By the ninth, Machado and Soto had homered, the Padres were leading 8-1, so from there it’s all mop up duty > high fives > awkward on-field post game interview > relaxing evening reflecting on a job well done, right? RIGHT?
But nothing is that easy with the 2023 Padres. We’re in the dog days of Bullpen Regression Summer, so Luis Garcia was able to retire only one of six batters. We had to bring in Hader to close out a game in which we were leading by a touchdown and extra point entering the ninth. We won, but had to wonder: “Is this shoddy bullpen performance a harbinger of things to come?”
Games two through four showed us that, at least in the short term, the answer is a definitive “yes”. Game two (the first of a Saturday double-header) started well: Blake Snell pitched five scoreless innings. But Steven Wilson’s first game back from injury did not go well, as he allowed a single and a walk followed by a two out double from Marsh that scored two. Kyle Schwarber hit a first pitch homerun in the seventh off Nick Martinez, continuing a troubling trend of first pitch disasters from BDN. Machado homered to give the Padres the lead in the eighth, but it turned out he was just handing the bullpen another lead to cough up. Which they did: Tim Hill gave up three runs in the bottom of the frame and the Padres lost 6-4.
The Padres had a starter dilemma in game three. With Wacha on the DL, the start would go to either Joe Musgrove or Ryan Weathers. It made some sense to start Musgrove against the Phillies instead of resting him for the Toronto series: The Phillies are a league rival who might end up battling the Padres for a Wild Card spot. The winning move would probably have been to start him against the Phillies1. But Weathers got the start, and it was definitionally not a winning move because the Padres did not win. Which wasn’t shocking, because – though the Padres have enjoyed some sunny days with Weathers on the hill – more often than not, the Weathers forecast has been:
To be fair to Weathers, he had some bad luck. Here’s Kyle Schwarber’s home run in the fourth:
Courtesy: @Phillies
Okay…so what, right? Schwarber hit a home run to the pull side, typical stuff, yes? But here’s where StatCast provides insight:
That’s a three run home run with an expected batting average of .080. How can that be?
Try watching the video at 0.25 speed:
This is one of those “Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes” home runs, because in real time it looks like a typical home run, but at slower speed you can see Schwarber is way out in front of this pitch. Unfortunately for the Padres, Schwarber is an incredible athlete with unrivaled hand strength, but still, this is an out in a bigger stadium (cough cough, Petco cough). Schwarber kind of lucked out.
Of course, the story from Saturday’s double header was the bullpen being bad, not the starters being bad, so we need to note that the bullpen gave up five more runs on the way to a 9-4 loss. Just very rough stuff.
Game four was maybe the most tragic of the season. The Padres took a 3-1 lead into the 6th, but starter Seth Lugo ran into trouble the third time through the order. With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Schwarber homered again, his third of the four game series. An infield single by Turner was followed by back-to-back doubles from Harper and Realmuto, and suddenly the Phillies led 4-3. Tom Cosgrove couldn’t put out, allowing a single to Stott followed by back-to-back walks to score Realmuto. He got two strikeouts to end the inning, but the Padres trailed 5-3. The Padres’ inability to hit late in games is the stuff of legends, but – to their credit – they managed to fight back. In the eighth, Kim doubled, and after a Soto ground out advanced him to third, Machado and Bogaerts walked to load the bases. Tatis then came through with a single to score Kim and Machado, making it five to five. The bullpen had given up an unsustainably horrible 11 runs in 8.1 innings across Saturday’s double header, but Sunday they tried for redemption. Nick Martinez had perhaps his best outing of the season, pitching a scoreless bottom of the eighth, then after the Padres failed to score in the top of the ninth, closed out the bottom half in order sending the game into extra innings. This was the Padres ninth extra inning game of the year, and, improbably, they had won none of the previous eight. A win would help the word “pursuit” in the phrase “Padres 2023 playoff pursuit” feel less ridiculous, but a loss would bring them closer to the 1969 Montreal Expos who hold the record for extra inning futility, having gone 0-12 in extra frames that season.
A win in that situation would have been really, really nice. It felt like the entire season was sitting on a knife’s edge. We were facing the team that had ended our World Series ambitions in 2022, and who now represented the most likely competitor for the zero-sum final Wild Card spot. We had a chance take a crucial win by overcoming our greatest weakness: clutch performance in extra innings. Yes, a win would have been very nice, indeed.
But the 2023 Padres aren’t allowed to have nice things. The Phillies handed us a “sorry about your extra innings troubles” gift to start the tenth: A passed ball let Grisham (the Manfred Man on second) advance to third. But then Kim struck out. The Padres strike out far too often in high-leverage late game situations, which makes one wonder if they’re sticking with their swing-for-the-fences approach even when the game situation places a premium on just putting the bat on the ball. Their 0-8 extra innings record is not just bad luck – they really are hitting poorly in those situations:
A .449 OPS in extra innings. For comparison, Austin Nola’s OPS on the year is .452. Yes, this is small sample size theatre, but that doesn’t change the fact that the play in extra innings has been unacceptable.
The Padres fortunes looked like they might change when Juan Soto smashed a fly ball to center field. Unfortunately, it was hit right at the center fielder, but fortunately, it was a productive out that allowed Grisham to score the go-ahead run. The Padres took a 6-5 lead into the bottom of the 10th.
Josh Hader came in to close out the game. He got the first two outs and the Manfred Man only advanced to third. Any out would end the game. It’s worth remembering that in the key at-bat in game 5 of the NLCS last year, Bob Melvin elected not to replace Robert Suarez with Josh Hader when Bryce Harper stepped to the plate. This time, we got the Hader/Harper matchup that we should have had then.
Hader’s first pitch was a front door slider that that Harper swung at and missed. Hader went back to the slider on pitch two, but it leaked over the plate, and Harper didn’t miss this time: He smashed a single to center field, tying the game. The outcome wasn’t good, but at least this wasn’t Padresing. The Phillies best beat our best.
The Padres couldn’t muster a hit or a productive out in inning’s 11 or 12. In the bottom of the 12th the Phillies sacrificed the Manfred Man from second to third, and Kyle Schwarber quickly fell behind 1-2 against Tim Hill. But here’s where it’s important to note the leverage of the moment. The Phillies didn’t need a home run. They didn’t even need a hit. The most important thing in this situation, down 1-2, winning run on third, was to avoid a strikeout. Schwarber happens to lead the major leagues in strikeouts. He strikes out an astonishing 35.2% of the time. He swings for the fences and accepts a higher strikeout rate as a tradeoff for more power, more run creation. Except not always:
Video: https://twitter.com/ToddZolecki/status/1680729788091183104
With two strikes, a runner on third with less than two outs, in the bottom half of an extra inning game, notorious three true outcomes slugger Kyle Schwarber shortened up. His head was down, maximizing the chance he’d make contact. He wasn’t swinging for the fences. He looped a lazy flyball into left field that carried with it a near zero expected batting average, but also a near 100% win probability. That’s clutch hitting, skillfully executed by a hitter changing his approach in response to the situation. This was clutch hitting at its finest.
The Padres did suffer some extraordinarily bad luck at moments during the three losses in this series. This will happen in any baseball season; you’re going to lose games due to bad luck. Of course, the hedge against that bad luck is to take advantage of every game in which you have the opportunity to win. You do not let games get away when you have the chance to close the deal, because the baseball Gods are going to take a few from you that you deserved to win. That’s baseball. Each loss now carries more and more leverage as the trade deadline barrels towards us. With each loss, the painful memories of the games we gave away reverberate with increased amplitude. And it doesn’t make it less painful to lose the last game of the series in such an ironic way: Schwarber – perhaps the quintessential three true outcomes player – changed things up in a high-leverage situation and delivered a clutch at-bat. He did the thing the Padres continually fail to do. And the Phillies inched closer to the playoffs while we inched closer to the ’69 Expos.
The Padres can lose 22 more times this season before it’s all but certain the postseason dream is gone. Reaching those 22 losses feels inevitable. Hope is not yet extinguished but its light feels out of reach, a waning glow above the murky waters of the Padres sinking season. The Padres, and AJ Preller, have indicated they are not ready to give up on the season. And while any light is still visible, we should expect A.J. to try to breathe life into this team, giving them the strength to ascend, ascend, ascend until they finally break through the surface.
That is not impossible. But neither is it likely. And that consideration should influence A.J.’s risk management strategy the rest of this season. The Padres now face the Blue Jays with 13 games to go before the August 1st trade deadline, it is absolutely do or die time. There are a suite of strategic choices that A.J. will consider before the trade deadline. The Phillies series could have thrown us a lifeline, but instead it we just sank deeper. In future columns, we’ll talk about how A.J. might seek a bit more buoyancy.
Some speculated the decision came down to giving Musgrove more rest to recover from a mild bursitis, which is defensible if true.