The Razor's Edge
In the season's dying light, one missed opportunity too many
On Wednesday, the Padres wrapped a three-game series at Petco Park. They lost two of the three games against the last-place Pirates, which completed a six-game stretch in which the Padres went 3-3 against Pittsburgh and the lowly Detroit Tigers. This was a lost opportunity, and it felt like a turning point. The Padres are now 1-5 against the Pirates, and can only lose 18 more games before it’s all but certain that they’ll miss the playoffs. Phrased another way: They’d need to post a .695 winning percentage over the final 59 games to reach that benchmark. That is unfriendly math.
In baseball, knowledge usually accrues slowly, a matter of observing trends rather than moments. But sometimes, moments convey deeper truths. On Wednesday, in the bottom of the eighth, with the Padres trailing 2-1, Fernando Tatis Jr. squared up a 99 MPH fastball from Colin Holderman.
Courtesy: @TalkingFriars
It’s easy to miss, but this sequence is extraordinary. Starting with Tatis’ hit: It was a clean barrel. Watching it live, you could see it jump from the bat with a perfect launch angle. Tatis knew he got it: He held his follow-through and started a leisurely home run trot. But, just before the camera cut away to center field, you could see Tatis quicken his pace, suddenly unsure if the ball would leave the yard. The first shot of centerfield was remarkable:
This is a wide vertical pan of center fielder Jack Suwinski one step away from the wall, staring almost straight up at a ball that is not even in frame yet. The flags show almost no wind. But, somehow (spin of the ball? do we have batted ball spin rates?), this ball died on the warning track. Suwinski caught the ball with his shoulder just brushing the center field wall, ending the inning. And Tatis stood with his hands on his knees staring at the ground for what seemed like an eternity.
The very next batter was Carlos Santana, who turned on a 95 MPH fastball that dotted the outside corner from Robert Suarez. It looked like another sure-fire home run…and it was. Whatever invisible hand had knocked down Tatis’ fly ball let Santana’s hit pass. The home run opened up a 3-1 lead in a game the Pirates would eventually win 3-2. As close as that sounds, a deeper look at the two moments in Wednesday’s game reveals the razor’s edge:
Two balls hit with an identical launch angle, one hit harder than the other, yet the softer hit cleared the fence. And that exchange changed the trajectory of the Padres’ season, perhaps for good. These are the subtle moments that determine a team’s fate. This is the inscrutable, confounding, game within the game.
More than any other game, baseball requires dissection. Box scores only tell you what was, not what could have been. Baseball makes you wonder how much control you really have over your fate. Moments like the one on Wednesday lay this question bare: You can do everything right and fail.
This has been a season of missed opportunities. Much of what’s wrong with the Padres is the result of mistakes they inflicted on themselves. But it also seems like they’ve been remarkably unlucky. Padres fans often wonder “what did we do to deserve this?”, and then we remember “Oh, right…this.”
But focusing on the narrow margins that separate a win from a loss can obscure this reality: Games between the 2023 Padres and 2023 Pirates were not supposed to be close. It’s a failure for a team as talented as the Padres to be living on the razor’s edge. We’re always going to remember this season for how close it was to being a success; we’ll remember the moments of bad luck that led to losses when even average luck would have changed our fate. But we should also remember that we failed to widen our advantage beyond the reach of everyday misfortune.
Much of the discourse after the loss was that this is a team without heart or fight. It’s hard to feel that way when you see Tatis do everything that a hitter is supposed to do only to be met with the worst outcome. You can see it in his hunched moment of dejection; his best effort wasn’t good enough. The Padres didn’t actually go down without a fight on Wednesday. Xander Bogaerts started a potential rally in the ninth when he fouled off six pitches before finally walking on the 12th pitch; it might have been his best at-bat as a Padre. Campusano followed with a single, and Cronenworth was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Juan Soto came off the bench to pinch hit in a game where he was being rested to deal with a lingering finger injury. Though, we didn’t know that at the time; after the game, Bob Melvin told the media “I didn’t want to use Juan today… he came and said ‘I’m gonna hit.’”
Soto’s declaration was almost prescient: He didn’t get a hit, but he did walk. That brought in a run, making it 3-2 Pirates. But then Kohlway popped out and Grisham struck out swinging, and that was the ballgame. Pirates closer David Bednar threw 37 pitches in the inning. The Padres didn’t win, but they fought to the end.
You can look at Wednesday’s game multiple ways. Juan Soto was given a “scheduled day off” even though it was a must-win game and Soto had hit a dramatic home run the night before. Was that Padresing? Did they turn down an opportunity to put a thumb – or, rather, a Juan Soto finger – on the scales of fortune? Soto revealed after the game that the finger has been hurt since January, and it’s the reason why he was wincing after certain swings and struggling with his grip on the bat. But he denied that it had gotten any worse recently.
It’s hard to know if Soto is telling the truth or just trying not to complain. But the team did change course despite their initial decision. Soto asked to be put in, obviously wanting to step up despite the implications for his own health. That doesn’t seem like a player with neither heart nor fight.
Even in this bleak week of baseball, there were still bright spots. Ha-Seong Kim continued his stealth MVP campaign by swatting two more home runs, moving into the National League lead in bWAR. Luis Campusano also continued to hit the ball hard. But those bright spots couldn’t alter the broader picture, which is that the light of the Padres hope is slowly dying.
The task before the Padres is almost impossible. After losing three more winnable games against bad teams, they now must truly play like the best team in baseball for the rest of the season in order to make the playoffs. The team probably lost a lot of believers after the Pirates series. But A.J. Preller may still believe in the Padres, and, of course: There’s an “almost” in “almost impossible”. The trade deadline is nearly here, and it’s a gigantic wild card (no pun intended). The biggest potential trade target was taken off the market when the Angels traded two of their three best prospects; if they’re dealing prospects, they’re not going to trade Ohtani. That trade also makes the Padres the holders of the best assets on the trade market: Blake Snell and Josh Hader.
The fact that the Padres are not totally dead makes Preller’s trade deadline decisions more difficult. We’ve discussed before how teams might adjust risk when considering trading present value for future value. No one but Preller knows which calculus the Padres will use. But there’s only one full series left before the Padres have to declare themselves buyers, sellers, or paralyzed by indecision. Fittingly, that series will be played against the team Preller has the most history with: The Texas Rangers. Here’s hoping the Padres can saddle up.