San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
PLAYOFF FORMAT ALLOWS FOR BREATHING ROOM
How crazy is this season? They changed the playoff format just a few hours before the first pitch was thrown in Washington on Thursday.
Jayce Tingler didn’t have much to offer regarding the expansion from five to eight teams in each league making the postseason.
“Nothing changes for us,” he said. “It truly doesn’t. It’s the focus of day-to-day. We’ll look up at the end of 60 games. If it does anything, at the end of those 60 days it may allow for a little more breathing room. But our start and our plans, nothing has changed.”
The first- and secondplace teams in each division plus a seventh and eighth seed, based on record, will qualify for the postseason this year. The format calls for all eight qualifiers to participate in a best-of-three series in what will be called the wild-card round. The winners advance to the usual best-of-five division series, which is followed by the bestof-seven league championship series and World Series.
Eric Hosmer gave the one-year-only format an endorsement — primarily because it theoretically greatly increases the Padres chances of making it to the postseason for the first time since 2006.
“We love it,” he said. “Any team can win, anything can happen when you get to the postseason. And we certainly feel like we have a team that is built for this type of format. … That’s the formula we’re looking for — those close games there in the fifth, sixth inning. We can just scratch a couple across and get it to our bullpen. That was the formula (Friday), and that’s what we believe in.”
Working it
Jurickson Profar’s 10pitch walk in Friday night’s 7-2 victory over the Diamondbacks was the epitome of what the Padres have been preaching and working on — since before spring training started and then through the spring and a 31⁄2-month hiatus and summer camp.
In the sixth inning of a 0-0 game, with two outs and runners on first and second, Profar took two strikes, fouled off two pitches, watched three balls and then fouled off a curveball just outside the zone and a cutter that was inside before taking ball four.
“I took a lot of pride,” Profar said Saturday. “In my mind, it was, ‘This is our moment, so I need to do something. I’m not going to get out. Any way I can — if it’s a base hit, a walk, but I’m not going to get out.’ It turned out to be a walk to set up Hos.”
Hosmer followed with the first of his two three-run doubles.
The Padres on Friday chased just 18.3 percent (17 of 93) of the pitches they saw outside the strike zone. That’s a good start to a new era by a team that last year chased 31.3 percent of such pitches, 14th in the majors.
In Madison Bumgarner’s four starts against them last year, the Padres never chased fewer than 32.2 percent of the pitches he threw outside the zone. They swung at just three of the 27 pitches he threw outside the zone Friday (not counting the couple they let go that were outside the zone but called strikes).
“Everything we’ve been working on paid off right away last night,” Profar said.
Still waiting
The Padres have not named a starter beyond Garrett Richards today.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do yet on Monday,” Tingler said Saturday afternoon. “Probably get through the game tonight and a little bit tomorrow and ultimately make a decision.”
Zach Davies, Cal Quantrill and Joey Lucchesi were theoretically available in the bullpen Friday and would be again Saturday — if the Padres went through nine other relievers.
It’s not that the team is being cryptic or employing gamesmanship. Their reluctance to commit has to do with the fact that none of the three distinguished themselves to a great enough extent and also with the nature of this season, plus a commitment to take many situations as they come.
“They were emergency last night,” Tingler said Saturday. “… We didn’t expect to go 20 innings, but if we got down there, it was in that order — Davies, Lucchesi, Cal in case anything happened.”
Testing, testing
The numbers MLB released its updated testing numbers on Friday. There have been 84 players players and 15 staff members test positive for COVID-19 since the start of intake testing prior to summer camp. That is 0.3 percent of the 32,640 tests. Since monitoring testing began, 22 players and seven staff members have tested positive, which is 0.1 percent of 28,888 tests.
Those number are seen as highly encouraging, but events just since the start of the season illustrate the unknown ahead.
The Nationals are without star outfielder Juan Soto after he tested positive on Tuesday. On Saturday, a night after he served as the Reds’ designated hitter, Matt Davidson received word of a positive test and was placed on the Covid-injured list.
When a player tests positive, that means any player who was deemed by the Center for Disease Control standards to have been in “contact” with that player is supposed to be tested and quarantined until that result is known.
On deck
The Padres face Diamondbacks RHP Zac Gallen (3-6, 2.81 ERA in 2019). The 24-year-old went 2-3 with a 2.89 ERA after Arizona acquired him from the Marlins last July. He beat Padres with seven shutout innings of one-hit ball on Sept. 4. Gallen struck out eight in the game and walked one.
Richards (0-1, 8.31 ERA in 2019) made three starts for the Padres last September after returning from Tommy John surgery. That included holding Arizona to one run on one hit and four walks in 3 1⁄3 innings in his final start of the season.