WILLIAMS, CRISMATT PROVE WORTH IN ’PEN
Austin Adams’ forearm wasn’t in a great spot. Then Pierce Johnson pulled up lame with a groin injury and Dan Altavilla strained his calf.
In fact, if the Padres weren’t littering their injured list with relievers, Taylor Williams — out of options and slowed himself this spring by tightness in his non-throwing shoulder — likely wouldn’t have been on the opening-day roster.
The Padres might have been OK with four earned runs in 81⁄3 innings in the hitter-friendly Cactus League, but Williams’ five walks did him no favors, especially stacked next to nonroster invitee Nabil Crismatt’s 12-to-0 strikeout-to-walk ratio this spring.
Both right-handers wound up on the roster.
Both showed well over the weekend, too, a necessity if they’re going to find a way to stay on the roster as Adams, Johnson and Altavilla make progress.
Adams and Johnson appear to be further along after throwing in games at the alternate site in Arizona over the weekend.
“All three guys are progressing,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. “We’ll get through the Giants series and hopefully those guys are getting really close and hopefully we’ve got some really hard decisions to be made.”
Tingler spoke highly of Crismatt — who can be optioned to the alternate site — after the righty threw two scoreless innings in Sunday’s Padres debut. Williams got into his first game on Friday night and struck out Christian Walker on three
fastballs. On Sunday, Williams erased a leadoff walk in the fifth inning with a lineout and a groundball double play.
“I like how resilient he’s been,” Tingler said of Williams. “I like how aggressive he’s been. He’s done his job so far. We need him to keep taking the ball and getting big outs for us.”
Cronenworth’s turn
The fifth different lineup
in five days saw Tingler write a new name in the leadoff spot:
Jake Cronenworth, who not only had never started a game in the leadoff spot but had only started one other game in the two-hole before Sunday.
Tommy Pham led off the first two games, followed by two in a row from Fernando Tatis Jr. With Trent Grisham still out — and trending toward rejoining the Padres
in Texas on Friday — Cronenworth is getting a look. He’d been on base twice in each of the first three games of the season and reached base via a hit-bypitch Sunday.
For his career, Cronenworth entered Sunday with a .368 on-base percentage. The choice to go with him in the leadoff spot Monday was due in part to both his start to the season (1.196 OPS) and five lefties sitting in the
Giants’ bullpen.
“The main thing Jake does is he gives you a good atbat every time he goes up there,” Tingler said. “You have a lot of confidence he’s going to swing at strikes. He does a great job of getting on base, and that’s what we need. As far as leading off, we’re going to change things up. Each series is different, especially with the threebatter minimum. This team has five lefties in the bullpen.
We’re going to spread some guys out. We’re going to change up some looks.”
Notable
The Padres traded minor league RHP Dauris Valdez
to the Cubs for RHP James Norwood, a 27-year-old who has a 4.50 ERA over parts of three seasons (22 innings) in the majors. He has struck out 21 batters and walked 14 over that span. Norwood — who has an upper-90s sinker, a splitter and a mid-80s slider — provides the Padres with a more immediate depth option than Valdez, who pushes 100 mph on the radar gun but was struggling with his control this spring. Norwood was optioned to the alternate training site. To make room on the 40-man roster, RHP Javy Guerra
(UCL sprain) was transferred to the 60-day injured list.
• RHP Dinelson Lamet
approached 40 pitches in an alternate site game over the weekend and continued to throw in the bullpen after the action, according to the Padres. He’ll throw another bullpen before potentially pushing his workload to between three and four innings. The Padres had targeted Lamet’s return for the third week of April.
• C Austin Nola (finger) was expected to work out in San Diego on Monday and today before getting into games at the alternate site, either Wednesday or Thursday.
• With five errors in the first four games, Tatis spent a great deal of early work Monday doing one-on-one drills with bench coach