CLEVINGER INJURED AS PADRES FALL TO ANGELS
The Padres can’t say for certain when Mike Clevinger will pitch again. Their offense also remains MIA. And at this point is it hard to say which is more concerning?
Eric Hosmer mashed his first home run since returning from a broken finger, but the Padres lost the playoff ace they’d stashed up their sleeve in the first inning to continued biceps tightness and mustered little else at the plate in a 5-2 loss to the Angels on Wednesday, an allaround dud to close their regular-season home schedule.
“It’s extremely concerning,” Hosmer said after the Padres lost for the fifth time in seven games and their second in a row since clinching their first postseason berth since 2006. “He’s one of the better pitchers in the game. We certainly want that guy on our team heading into the postseason. But at the end of the day all we can control is what we can control. We’re certainly hoping it’s not a serious deal, but if it is, then you certainly rally around your teammates, you do what you can to pick those guys up and somebody else •
will have to step up.”
Of course, the Padres, officially, are waiting for MRI results before delving too deep into where they go from here.
To San Francisco, yes, to play the final four games of the regular season after today’s off-day and presumably back to San Diego for next week’s best-of-three wild-card round. St. Louis lost to Kansas City later Wednesday, dropping the Padres’ magic number to one to clinch homefield in that round. The Cardinals host Milwaukee today, meaning the Padres could clinch on an off-day.
But will Clevinger be in those sunny postseason plans? How serious is the injury? What exactly is it?
None of that could be answered definitely after the Angels swept the two-game series. The best rookie manager Jayce Tingler could deliver was that Clevinger’s discomfort was “pretty similar” to the tightness that scratched him from last Saturday’s start.
A muscle strain or tendinitis are the preliminary suspicions, both of which could sideline Clevinger too long to be available in October.
He’d been given the green light after a Monday bullpen, but, according to Tingler, it “tightened up on him” after a curveball to the second hitter of the game.
Tingler didn’t volunteer what exactly had tightened up on Clevinger until pressed for specifics.
“It was originally around the biceps tendon,” Tingler said. “It just got tight in that area. That’s what he said.”
He added: “We’re going to wait for the results and see what the doctors say. I don’t want to speculate on anything else because I honestly don’t know.”
What wakes up this slumbering offense is anyone’s guess as the Padres were hitting .194 with a .303 on-base percentage over a six-game stretch heading into Wednesday’s matinee.
It certainly wasn’t an early jolt from Hosmer.
Manny Machado doubled with two outs in the first inning and Hosmer swatted an 0-1 fastball from Angels starter Jaime Barria off the façade of the second deck of the Western Metal Supply Co. to give the Padres an early 2-0 lead.
It was just his second hit in 12 at-bats since returning from the injured list and one of the few bright spots as the Padres finished the season
with a home record of 21-11. Hosmer added a second hit, a single, in his last at-bat.
As sleepy as the offense has been over the last week, improving timing for Hosmer and Tommy Pham, who is returning from a broken hamate, were notable silver linings. Pham also singled in the ninth, squared up a linedrive out in the first inning and did not strike out.
“It felt good to put some good swings on the ball, especially the first at-bat,” Hosmer said. “These games are big for me. These at-bats are big for me. I missed some time. Wasn’t that much time, but heading into our postseason run I definitely want to have the ability to get these big league at-bats and today finally feels like we’re heading in the right direction.”
Yet whatever boost Hosmer’s first-inning homer provided had been wiped away by the time left-hander Adrian Morejon began warming for the second inning.
Given how crisp he was, Clevinger’s exit was a surprise.
He needed 12 pitches to dismiss the Angels. Seven were strikes. His fastball sat 93-95 mph. His slider finished off strikeouts of David Fletcher to start the game and Mike Trout to conclude the inning.
Then Clevinger walked into the dugout, and — gulp — perhaps out of postseason plans that hinged a great deal on the 29-year-old righthander bolstering the rotation for a deep playoff run.
Pressed into early action, Morejon walked Anthony Rendon to start the second inning. Shohei Ohtani and Justin Upton followed with
back-to-back homers and Anthony Bemboom added a one-out shot.
Just like that, the Angels had doubled up on Hosmer’s two-run homer.
The Padres struck out nine times, stranded 14 runners and went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, none of which was characteristic of an offense that carried the Padres back into the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.
They’re counting on that reversing course over four games in San Francisco before the playoffs start next Wednesday.
“We’ve got four more games and we have to get back and get going kind of on a lot of cylinders,” Tingler said. “Frustrating not being able to score the runs that we have been throughout the year. At the same time, these things happen. These little mini pitfalls or slumps happen. And probably just, if you’re going to do it collectively as a team, probably now is the time to do it. We certainly don’t want that to be the case next week. It’s tough to be too frustrated, offensively certainly, just the way we’ve swung the bats all year and have been productive.
“I feel confident we’ll get out of this shortly and get going. As a group, we had a lot of guys throw the ball today and throw the ball well. Like I said, four games in three days and we’ll see where we’re at and we’ve just got to be planning on playing our best ball starting on Wednesday.”
Staff writer Kevin Acee contributed to this report.
jeff.sanders@sduniontribune.com