San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
LAMET SHOWS STUFF
Padres righty goes five strong innings to defeat Arizona
Dinelson Lamet has never completed a full major league season.
The Padres can hardly wait for it to happen.
“He’s got a chance to be a dominant pitcher,” said Larry Rothschild, the Padres’ new pitching coach and a man who doesn’t seem prone to hyperbole. “… What he needs is the ability to pitch some innings. I think a lot of things will happen for him.”
After a rookie season in 2017 that started in late May and a season-and-a-half lost to Tommy John surgery before he returned last July, Lamet made his first unbridled start Saturday, going long enough to get the decision in a 5-1 Padres victory over the Diamondbacks.
Through five innings, he showed why he is an arm the Padres certainly want to see more of. Before being lifted following Starling Marte’s double leading off the sixth inning, Lamet allowed a run on five hits and a walk while striking out eight.
Eric Hosmer, who the night before drove in six runs on a pair of three-rbi doubles, was scratched a little more than an hour before Saturday’s first pitch due to an illness the team said was not related to COVID-19. Ty France took his place at first base and batting fifth.
France was part of a three-run fourth inning.
After Lamet surrendered a run in the top of the inning, Tommy Pham worked a oneout walk, France singled and Wil Myers laced a curveball 396 feet and into the empty seats beyond left field.
Lamet retired the Diamondbacks in order in the fifth, reaching 78 pitches in the process.
In a testament to how dominant Lamet had been, Jayce Tingler let him start the sixth inning. Tingler has said many times that he will not hesitate to have a short leash on starters and plans to, as much as possible, manage every game as its own entity in this abbreviated season.
A fresh bullpen would
have allowed him to abandon Lamet sooner on Saturday.
Tingler’s decision worked out, as Matt Strahm replaced Lamet and got two groundouts before Austin Hedges ended the inning by throwing out Marte trying to steal third.
The Padres extended their lead to 5-1 when Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the bottom of the seventh with a double that bounced over the wall in center field and Manny Machado followed with a home run that reached nearly the same spot in the seats (without the bounce).
Craig Stammen, who got the final two outs of the seventh, worked a hitless eighth, all on 19 pitches despite his throwing error. Showing his intentions to make sure no game slips away, closer Kirby Yates came in to protect a fourrun lead in the ninth. Picking up where he left off in 2019, Yates struck out the first two batters he faced before ending the game on Kole Calhoun’s groundout.
Technically, Lamet is expected to have a full campaign in 2020.
“I’m really excited,” he said recently. “Even though I’m not going to have a lot of outings, it’s great to know I can go out there and compete and try to win.”
If Lamet takes the ball every turn in the rotation, he will make 12 starts.
The Padres will take every one of them, provided the 28-year-old righthander can be the version of himself that sparkled in Saturday’s twilight.
The Diamondbacks could hardly have recognized him.
In two starts his rookie season, he posted a 14.04 ERA against them.
They had, of course, seen video.
They knew his 12.95 strikeouts per nine innings last year were tops in the National League and trailed just Gerrit Cole (13.82) and Chris Sale (13.32) in all of baseball among those who made at least 10 starts.
But in many of his starts, he has experienced bouts of wildness. His career strikeout-to-walk ratio of 2.9 is at least one strikeout shy of where a top-shelf starter resides. He did up that ratio to 3.5 over his 14 starts last season, but Saturday was just the 10th time in 30 career starts Lamet went at least five innings and walked fewer than two batters.
He threw 59 strikes among his 80 pitches. His slider had its usual impossible slither, save for one thing. It consistently went where he wanted it to. His fastball reached a career high of 100 mph on a pitch in the first inning and sat around 98 all night.
The Diamondbacks were fouling off pitches, checking swings, watching sliders sneak into the zone, putting the ball in play off the thin parts of their bats.
He got through three innings on 41 pitches having allowed a double and walking one batter before a 23pitch fourth inning in which Christian Walker doubled to drive in Marte.
For three innings, the Padres had no better remedy for Robbie Ray. Only Trent Grisham, the sole left-handed hitter in the Padres’ lineup, had a hit against the crafty Diamondbacks’ lefty to that point.
The Padres, however, had run Ray’s pitch count up to 58 with a carryover of the selectivity they showed in the opener. They would finish with seven walks for the second straight night.