Compounding

An injury and mistake cascade

It’s interesting to think about the compounding effects of the Padres recent injuries.

There’s a chain reaction leading to value destruction for the Padres offense so much more than first jumps off the page when looking at the names alone. Jackson Merrill’s injury meant not just the loss of an MVP level center fielder, it was also value destructive to the left field production as the platoon of Brandon Lockridge and Jason Heyward were forced into simultaneous duty, negating the advantages each had enjoyed when they were able to only face their favorable platoon matchups. With Lockridge thrust into full time center field duty, Oscar Gonzalez was called up to take his spot as the right handed platoon option in left¹. Then Jake Cronenworth hit the IL. Initially the Padres looked equipped to weather this injury when they called up the left handed Tyler Wade who would platoon with Jose Iglesias, both of whom fare pretty well against their preferred platoon matchup. But then Brandon Lockridge went down to a hamstring injury, pulling Wade to cover center field, destroying the platoon value Wade had provided at second base. Then Jason Heyward went down to a knee injury forcing Oscar Gonzalez into a full time role in left. Then Luis Arraez went down with a concussion after an awful collision in Houston. Gavin Sheets had been the left handed DH platoon on days Luis Arraez played first base, but suddenly Sheets was the team’s starting first baseman. Pulling Sheets into full time duty at first base completed a chain reaction that saw lesser players inserted into center field, left field, second base, first base, and destroyed the platoon flexibility of left field, second base, first base, and DH in the process. The value destruction from the rash of injuries goes way beyond the downgrade in talent of the individual players. The injuries not only put worse players on the field, they also put those players in a worse position to succeed.

Dredging for solutions in the minors turned up nothing. The Padres brought up Connor Joe, Tirso Ornelas, and Mason McCoy who have combined for 28 plate appearances accruing one hit, 11 strikeouts, two walks, and an OPS of 0.146. When no value could be found in the minor league reserves, the Padres offensive lineup was suddenly a barren moonscape.

This cascading effect can’t be overstated. It bears out in the statistics. Since Merrill officially went to the IL April 7th the Padres have played 18 games, and scored the fifth fewest runs in baseball over that span:

And since Arraez went down the Padres have been the worst offense in MLB:

But it’s important to put this in the proper context. Thus far it does appear that the calamitous injury cascade is temporary. Luis Arraez and Jason Hayward appear close to a return. It’s a murkier timeline for Merrill, Cronenworth, and Lockridge, but their injuries are thought to be short term, with a return in May for all three not out of the question.

So while the injury cascade has quite literally made the Padres the worst offense in baseball, it’s reasonable to think that’s not a mortal wound to their postseason ambitions. Especially because they banked important wins early on.

And on the other side of the ball, since the start of the injury cascade, the Padres run prevention has continued to be elite. Third best in the MLB over that span:

This is because the Padres pitching is enviable. The bullpen is the best in the league:

Michael King, Dylan Cease, and Nick Pivetta form an elite 1-3. Randy Vasquez and Kyle Hart are the lone weak spots on the pitching side of things.

A team this good at run prevention can have a fighting chance at a .500 stretch even with abysmal offense, because run prevention keeps games close. And in close games smart decision making can be the difference.

But here is where the past few games proved anxiety provoking. While the injury plague will (hopefully) run its course, it’s hard to feel good about the decision making the team displayed in the Rays series. And it’s hard to know the implications of that.

Good Decisions

The Padres did start the homestand with a good strategic decision. Taking advantage of multiple upcoming off days, the Padres temporarily switched to a four man rotation, sending Kyle Hart to AAA Thursday and bringing up Ryan Bergert to bolster the bullpen’s long relief options. Kyle Hart is simply not a plug-and-play pitcher, very different night to night based on the atmospherics surrounding him, especially the platoon matchups in the opposing lineup. And Hart was facing a nightmare scenario against the Giants later this week. The Giants are capable of fielding a lineup of all right handers, plus their burgeoning star Jung-Hoo Lee who has shown absolutely no drop off against same side platoon pitchers:

This was outside the box thinking, and very good strategy. Unfortunately this was about the only salient example of genuinely creative strategic management during the Rays series. Instead, the Padres made several questionable strategic decisions that they had (at least some) control over. They also played some good, and some not so good, baseball across the close three game series which we’ll recap.

Game 1

Michael King started game 1 Friday. King has become one of the funnest players to watch in all of baseball. His first inning sequence to Brandon Lowe was impressive. King started with a four-seam fastball with 19 inches of induced vertical break that Lowe swung under. His next pitch was a changeup that fooled Lowe badly, inducing a swing on a pitch that ended up a foot off the plate. The third pitch was the sinker which King aimed right at Lowe’s front elbow. Just as Lowe flinched out of the way of the pitch it dove back over the plate for strike three. Here’s the whole sequence, including a fantastic slow-mo replay of the air bending strikeout pitch:

The four-seamer, changeup, and sinker all look the same out of the hand, but look at the absurdly different pitch shapes as they travel to home plate:

Unfair.

King was just as impressive in the 2nd, ultimately striking out the side. He challenged the right handed Junior Caminero with three straight sinkers, getting a swing through on the fifth pitch of the at bat:

Courtesy @PitchingNinja

He froze Kameron Misner on a front door sinker reminiscent of the pitch to Lowe in the first:

His sequence to Ben Rortvedt was a classic. After falling behind 2-0 on a four-seamer up out of the zone and a sweeper that was just a bit low, King challenged Rortvedt with a four-seamer in the zone and Rortvedt was way behind it:

King followed up with two more four-seamers on the outer shadow that Rortvedt was still behind, swinging under the first and fouling off the second:

Padres catchers have been doing nearly all of the pitch calling this season, but it looks like after that last pitch King used the PitchCom to change the pitch call to a fourth straight four-seam fastball:

On the fourth straight four-seam fastball Rortvedt’s timing was much better, but he didn’t quite square it up, fouling it straight backwards. And with Rortvedt now showing he’d timed up the four-seamer, King pulled the string:

Rortvedt ended up way out in front of the changeup.

King is most famous for his ridiculous pitch movement. But he’s one of the funnest pitchers to watch because of how he uses sequencing strategy. He runs a classic pitching playbook, and still changes pitch calls when he thinks he’s got an edge on a batter.

King’s one significant struggle this year has been his ability to provide length. He tends to get a fair number of whiffs and called strikes because of his ability to fool hitters. And this is good. But it does mean he tends to run up his pitch count. He was also perhaps victimized by his own excellence in the 2nd inning Friday when he threw essentially a perfect pitch to Christopher Morel on 3-2 which fooled not only the hitter but the umpire:

King did throw a complete game shutout against the Rockies last homestand, but that’s the only game this season he’s gone more than 5.2 innings. And he was at 41 pitches through two innings.

The only Rays offense came in the 3rd inning, and it’s tough to say they really got to King. Taylor Walls led off the inning reaching on an error:

Now that is definitely a bad throw from Bogaerts. But it is not a great effort from Gavin Sheets either, especially given Sheets height and length:

You can see that as the ball hits the ground Sheets is not fully extended to catch it on the short hop, nor is he fully back on the bag to give himself more time to react²:

The ball has enough distance to travel after the short hop to rise up and hit the heel of Sheets’ glove:

The teaching for first basemen trying to pick a short throw is to commit to either extending to smother a short hop, or else back up and try to react to the hop. Getting stuck midway between these strategies is generally the worst position a first baseman can put himself in. And in this case Sheets short arming his stretch puts him in a position where he’s not smothering the short hop, nor is he far enough back to have any time to react. This is nitpicky, and ultimately the error is rightly credited to Bogaerts. But there’s probably an opportunity to make this play if Sheets is using good technique, fully extending his arm, glove perpendicular to the ground:

Sheets is definitely a bigger target at first base than Luis Arraez , and that can be an advantage at times:

But picking might be an area where, despite his reputation as a hapless defender, Arraez is more skilled. Here’s Arraez stretching to smother a short hop right as it hits the dirt:

And here he is backing up to react to a very short throw:

First basemen’s skill with picking bad throws remains an analytics blind spot because of the inter-operator variability in judging the difficulty of any particular pick, and the lack of an objective scoring criteria to automate these judgements. The response to the inability quantify the skill has been to deemphasize its importance in analyzing the value of any given player. And that’s probably the correct way to handle that. But it’s a mistake to think there is no skill gap between players. Picking is definitely a skill, one that a player can improve on with practice. Something for the Padres to consider if they intend to keep running Sheets out at first base.

After Walls reached on the error, Chandler Simpson followed with a perfect bunt for a single:

Brandon Lowe followed with a good piece of hitting. King flinched him again with a front door sinker on the first pitch. But Lowe wasn’t cowed and stayed back on a second pitch changeup, barrelling it into right field for a single:

Yandy Diaz would make contact for a sac fly plating the Rays only run of the night:

King would get a strikeout and popup to end the inning and the only major jam he faced all night. King’s pitch count ended his night after five innings with nine strikeouts, one walk, and the lone unearned run given up. The Padres bullpen held the line. On the night Padres’ pitchers combined to pitch 9 innings giving up 0 earned runs and striking out 17 with only the one walk. It’s about as well as a team can pitch.

On the offensive side the Padres faced Rays under the radar ace Shane Baz in game one. Baz has two pitches (Four-seam fastball and curveball) ranked in the top 34 individual pitches in the league. He and fellow underrated Rays starter Drew Rasmussen are the only pitchers in baseball with two pitches ranked that high. And while Baz deserves a tip of the cap for pitching like the ace that he is, this injury riddled roster is likely to be one of the easiest matchups Baz will face this season. The Padres’ best chances to tie the game fell to Xander Bogaerts. And all night it seemed like his approach at the plate was very disjointed. Watch this swing from his first at bat on a pitch in the strike zone:

Now there were two strikes, and that might’ve been a defensive swing. Bogaerts might’ve been guessing pitches, and hence got badly fooled by the changeup. Regardless, it was an inauspicious beginning to a night that wouldn’t get much better for Bogaerts.

His second at bat came with a real opportunity to drive in runs. With runners on first and third after back-to-back two out singles from Tyler Wade and Tatis. Bogaerts worked the count to 2-0. Bogaerts has an OPS of 1.090 and slugs .740 in his career on 2-0 counts. The quintessential hitters count. And he got the quintessential hitter’s pitch: a challenge fastball in the middle of the plate:

But he just waved a half-hearted check swing at it. This is a mental mistake. He was not ready to hit. You work the count to 2-0 so that you can get this pitch. After the strike call the count would go full before Bogaerts struck out on a curveball. He got one fastball in the zone the entire at bat and watched it.

Bogaerts would get one more at bat with a chance to tie the game. With Tatis on second and two outs in the bottom of the 8th facing Manuel Rodriguez. Bogaerts had some bad luck when a 1-1 slider that was clearly low out of the zone was called a strike to make the count 1-2. Bogaerts would work the count to 2-2 but then got this sinker that froze him for strike three:

It’s tempting to just tip your cap to Rodriguez for a great pitch. But the ump had already shown he was giving Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt on pitches in that location. With two strikes and two outs and a runner on second in the bottom of the 8th of a 1-0 game you can’t let pitches that close to the zone go by. The pitch was nearly perfect, but it was close, and it needed a swing.

The Padres offense was stymied all night but they caught one final break in the ninth. The Rays brought in Garrett Cleavinger, their filthy left handed reliever, to secure the 1-0 victory. He struck out Manny Machado on a vicious sinker with 18 inches of horizontal break. Due up next was Gavin Sheets. Sheets has been unplayable against left handed pitching in his career:

And the Padres carry a right handed hitter in Yuli Gurriel whose only value proposition to the team is hitting. Yet they didn’t go to him. In a very telling moment, Sheets was allowed to take the at bat himself. Predictably Sheets would strike out on three pitches. But the Padres were gifted a baserunner when the third strike slider bounced away from the catcher allowing Sheets to reach first base.

Mason McCoy was brought in to pinch run for Sheets. This brought Oscar Gonzalez to the plate representing the winning run. The free swinging Gonzalez did get a pitch to hit, but was jammed on a cutter and flared a ball into right field. And here the final mental mistake of the night was consummated:

Mason McCoy was overly preoccupied with getting thrown out at second if the ball hit the ground, and as a result strayed too far off first so that when Misner made the catch in right field, McCoy could not scamper back to first in time and was doubled off to end the game. This is an absolute mental error. It’s unfortunate that the flare off Gonzalez’ bat was a tough read for McCoy. But it wasn’t a tough strategic choice. Take the risk of getting forced out at second on a drop, stay closer to the bag at first. Avoid the chance of a game ending double play if it’s caught. This is pressing. Trying to do too much, failing to get the basics of risk calculus right. Getting forced out at second if the ball dropped would've been bad, but the Padres would still have been bringing the winning run to the plate. Teams in this situation still win the game about 9% of the time. But if the fly ball is caught and McCoy is doubled off first base the game would be over. And it was. And McCoy was injured on the play hyperextending the pinky finger on his glove hand on the dive back into first.

As frustrating as game 1 was, you saw half of the championship formula in action, elite run prevention. The offense sputtered as expected. And that part will get better as players return to good health. What needs work are the strategic errors, and the roster construction decisions that are becoming less defensible. The team passed on using Yuli Gurriel in one of the only moments where he might provide some theoretical value. Gurriel was an elite hitter in his prime. But he’s in his age 41 season, and his in game physical metrics have been incredibly bad:

All except the bat speed and the whiff rate. And maybe that explains why Gurriel is occupying a scarce roster spot. Maybe Gurriel, still in possession of major league bat speed, is consistently squaring up balls in batting practice and impressing the team decision makers. This would not be a good reason for the team to think he has something left in the tank, but it would be a reason. And right now it’s fair to ask for proof of life of any reason that spending a precious roster spot on a one dimensional player with no positional versatility is a wise investment.

Game 2

The Padres started with something brewing in the bottom of the first in game 2. Fernando Tatis Jr. led off with a double. Gavin Sheets made a productive ground out to second moving Tatis to third with Manny Machado coming up. But then pressing reared its head again:

Machado bounced a ball right back to the pitcher, but Tatis appeared to have been going on contact and was hung out between third and home and eventually called out in the rundown. Machado was able to reach second base to keep the Padres scoring chance alive.

Xander Bogaerts followed, but this was another plate appearance where something looked wrong:

Statcast clocked the bat speed that produced this very soft liner at a languid 66.9 MPH. That’s borderline uncompetitive. And it’s not clear why. The swing came on a 2-1 count, a count in which Bogaert’s has hit .373 with a .971 OPS through his career. But he didn’t accrue those stats with swings like this. In slow motion you can see the swing just doesn’t have much power behind it:

Something seems off with Bogaerts’ approach at the plate. His mechanics look out of sync. The batspeed he was flashing earlier this season is for the moment nowhere to be found.

The Padres would get the leadoff runner on in the 2nd when Tirso Ornelas walked. But he was promptly picked off when he tried to extend a lead for a steal attempt, and the Padres went down in order. It’s not clear why Ornelas, 43rd percentile in sprint speed, is risking a precious out by trying to steal.

Tyler Wade would lead off the 3rd inning with a walk of his own. After Martin Maldonado fouled out, Wade attempted to steal second but was thrown out. This was a pretty questionable decision because Fernando Tatis Jr, one of the only hitters on the team that can drive a runner in from first, was at bat. Wade’s caught stealing would mark four straight innings in which a Padre made an out on the basepaths, dating back to the 9th inning the night before. You could argue that all four outs on the base paths were avoidable. Being too aggressive when the moment didn’t call for it.

Dylan Cease was on the mound for the Padres and got into some trouble in the top of the third. After striking out Yandy Diaz to start the inning, Cease got ahead 1-2 on Brandon Lowe after swinging strikes on a slider and a changeup. Martin Maldonado called for Cease to deliver a high four-seam fastball as a putaway pitch. With Lowe having only seen the offspeed stuff, a four-seamer to induce a swing through or popup was a reasonable choice. But the execution was poor:

The pitched leaked a few inches in and ended up over the middle of the plate. Lowe’s two-strike home run put the Rays up 1-0.

What followed next was a demoralizing series of events. After Cease got Junior Caminero to pop up to the infield, Xander Bogaerts drifted well into the second base side of the infield to field the popup even though Jose Iglesias seemed to be underneath it already:

Poor communication led to a near collision and Bogaerts failed to catch the popfly allowing Junior Caminero to reach first.

Cease got Jonathan Aranda to strikeout for what would have been the third out of the inning if not for the error. And on the strikeout pitch Caminero stole second to get into scoring position:

It looks like another mental error occurred here as Bogaerts did a nice job fielding a short throw from Maldonado, but then lunged to tag the sliding Caminero on the body instead of making the fundamentally sound play of swipining the tag to the front side of the base where it appears he would have been able to record the out.

If Bogaerts just drops the tag down between the base and Caminero’s foot it’s almost certain the out would have been recorded. Instead Caminero was safe.

With a runner now in scoring position, and given the extra out to work with, the Rays capitalized. Christopher Morel doubled off of another mistake from Cease, a first pitch fastball that leaked too far into the heart of the zone:

Cease struggled to find the top of the strike zone all night, with uncompetitive offerings too high out of the zone mixed with the occasional meatball too far in the zone. He struggled with pitch count as well and was only able to complete 4.1 innings, ultimately giving up three runs, striking out six, and walking four on 95 total pitches.

The Padres would break what had turned into a dreadful streak of 30 scoreless innings when Tatis drove in Tyler Wade in the 6th to cut the Rays lead to 3-1. In the 7th Manny Machado looked to have closed the gap further:

But Machado got Petco’d. Hits like this are home runs 91.1% of the time:

The 8th inning saw a nice moment with the debut of Ryan Bergert who was brought up for Kyle Hart. And he was effective in his first outing, recording his first strikeout on an absolute dot:

The Padres would have a final chance in the 9th inning after Machado crushed another pitch, this time a double to the left field gap off Peter Fairbanks:

This would bring up Bogaerts with another chance to drive in a run. He would work the count to a favorable 2-1. And Fairbanks challenged him with a fastball in the zone:

This was a hitter’s count. Again, a count in which Bogaerts has a lifetime batting average of .373 with a .971 OPS. But he did not amass those numbers taking swings like this. Statcast clocked a bat speed of 70.9 MPH, slower than Bogaert’s season average of 71.9 MPH. Bogaerts is having trouble with his approach at the plate and it’s likely that the difficulty he’s having with his swing mechanics are downstream of this. But he’s hitting either second or fourth every night, the two spots in the order most likely to encounter important at bats in the game flow. And that’s putting extra leverage on his struggles.

The Padres would lose game 2 with a final score of 4-1.

Game 3

Game three started with a frustrating omen:

Tatis got this one:

That was the second ball in two days that had over a 90% likelihood of being a home run but instead became an out for the Padres.

Some salt was rubbed in that wound when Taylor Walls was rewarded with a home run on a much worse hit ball two inning’s later:

The ball was hit well, but wasn’t crushed:

Vasquez did pitch well enough to keep the game close. The score was tied 2-2 heading into the 5th.

The biggest decision of the game by far was how the team handled the 5th inning. Or didn’t handle it. Depends how you frame it.

With one out in the 5th Randy Vasquez was finishing a second time through the order, facing the Rays number nine hitter, the right handed Danny Jansen. Vasquez appeared to get a bit lucky:

It’s pretty clear he got away with one there:

The out was significant because it completed the second turn through the order. One of the important atmospherics pitchers face is which time through the order they find themselves pitching in. Randy Vasquez is drastically less effective once he’s facing a hitter for a third time in the game.

And the next two hitters in the Rays order were the left handed Chandler Simpson and Brandon Lowe. Vasquez struggles mightily against left handers irrespective of which turn through the order it is:

The combination of the lineup having turned over, and two straight left handers coming to bat, made this a natural substitution point for Vasquez. Especially in a tied game where the Padres had a real chance to win given their superior bullpen and the game being at home.

But they elected to give Vasquez a chance to complete the frame. It’s not clear what the strategy here was. While it’s always good to get length from your starter, it’s unlikely they would have asked Vasquez to pitch the 6th inning against the Rays heart of the order a third time through. And there was an off day the following day so any bullpen arms used would’ve had a day to rest.

Whatever the reasoning was, it did look like the decision was going to work out at first, because Vasquez threw a perfect changeup in the lower half of the zone on an 0-2 count that froze Simpson:

But the umpire inexplicably called it a ball. And Simpson capitalized:

The new life given to Simpson by the umpire was bad luck. But the Padres may have made some of their own bad luck on this play with the defensive positioning choice:

This seems like absolutely wild defensive positioning for the fastest player in baseball. Leaving the entire left side of the infield open, to left handed hitter who dropped this bunt in game 1:

That much open real estate is an invitation to a speedy slap hitter to take a free base if he can just put it in play to the left side. We’ll let you be the judge of whether Simpson noticed the gaping holes on the left side of the infield:

Also, it might be wise to adjust the shift a bit when the pitch call is in this location, as many teams do:

Simpson is a terror on the basepaths. He stole 104 bases in the minors last year. A single could easily turn into a runner in scoring position. It’s just seems strange to play him the way the Padres did in such a close game.

Lefty Brandon Lowe was up next and the Padres had Adrian Morejon available to pitch. Brandon Lowe has a career OPS that is over 100 points lower versus lefties, and has been struggling terribly against left handed pitchers in 2025:

Adrian Morejon has been decimating left handed batters:

It seems completely natural to bring in Morejon at this point to prevent the inning from spiraling, especially because it was Lowe’s third time facing Randy Vasquez that day, and Brandon Lowe becomes Aaron Judge the third time he sees a pitcher in the same game:

But the decision was to stick with Vasquez. For some reason. It is unclear what the upside here was. And predictably Lowe smashed Vasquez’ first pitch 102.6 MPH into right field for a line drive single putting runners on first and third:

Yandy Diaz was up next, and still the Padres didn’t go to the bullpen. Diaz drew a seven pitch walk, but the key pitch of the at bat was a ‘wild pitch’ that allowed Simpson to score the go ahead and eventual winning run for the Rays:

This was ruled a wild pitch by MLB scorekeepers. Watch the slow motion though:

That’s a passed ball. Cracks are really forming in the Martin Maldonado defensive specialist narrative. It was definitely true earlier in his career. He was one of the best. But it’s looking like he’s getting by more on reputation than results at this stage. His age 39 season.

After the Rays took the 3-2 lead and Vasquez walked Diaz, the Padres brass had finally seen enough and went to the bullpen and mercifully ended the slow motion own-goal.

The best play in this series came in the top of the 7th. With the Rays threatening to extend their lead with runners on first and third and one out, Yandy Diaz hit a fly ball to right field. Fernando Tatis Jr made one of the best plays you will ever see:

Martin Maldonado also makes an elite tag to complete the double play. Tatis is an all time defender in right field. He’s a true five tool player.

The Padres had one minor scoring opportunity in the 7th when Connor Joe pinch hit and drew a walk to lead off the inning against Rays’ left hander Mason Montgomery. Jose Iglesias was up next, and Iglesias has always been a competent hitter against lefties:

He’s been especially good in 2025:

But Iglesias was asked to bunt the runner over which he dutifully did. This gave an RBI opportunity to Tyler Wade who has been decapitated by lefties throughout his career:

It turns out that Mason Montgomery was not just a lefty, but was rated as having the nastiest stuff of any reliever on Sunday:

Predictably Montgomery struck Wade out on four pitches, the final being an onerous slider that Wade missed by a foot:

Importantly, Wade was the third hitter Montgomery had faced in the inning which allowed the Rays to make a pitching change to bring in a right hander to face Elias Diaz. Edwin Uceta was given the task and struck out Diaz in four pitches to end the inning.

The Padres would go on to lose 4-2, swept at home despite allowing only nine runs across the three games.

The Padres were badly badly out managed in the third game of the homestand on Sunday. And the crucial 5th inning didn’t have any real surprises in it. Vasquez struggles with lefties facing him a third time through the order is entirely predictable, and allowing him to languish and give up a lead in the way he did was inexplicable.

Better To Be Lucky

The Padres will face the division rival Giants in a two game homestand starting Tuesday. While the Padres were scrapping with a Rays team that was playing near flawless baseball, the Giants were winning games like this:

It can be better to be lucky than to be good. But the Giants are both lucky and good. Their offense has also struggled of late however. Recalling one of the chart’s above, while the Padres have been the worst offense in baseball since Arraez’ injury, the Giants haven’t been far behind:

And the Padres already made the smart move to skip Kyle Hart’s start, so Nick Pivetta and Michael King will go up against the Giants. These games will count for more than the Rays games because the Giants are direct competition for one of the few NL playoff spots.

So we hope that the decision making can be a little better in these games. Because there’s virtually no chance this version of the Padres offense is going to score more than a few runs. So if the Padres are going to win, they’re going to need to win close games. Games where decisions on the margins make all the difference. Games like the three they just played. Like the games they will play in the postseason if they are lucky enough to make it.

1. Although interestingly Gonzalez has reverse splits:

So it’s fair to question whether this would’ve helped the platoon strategy in left.

2. Staying back would have been incorrect as well, but the approach should be either extending to smother the short hop or back up to give yourself a chance to react.