TEXAS TO BE RIGHT SALVE FOR PADRES?
Friars heated up when they visited Rangers last season
Jayce Tingler’s Padres have been here before.
Yes, at new Globe Life Field. In fact, twice last year, their last trip taking them into the postseason bubble for the NLDS. Of course, their earlier venture into Arlington, Texas, mirrors a bit the current state of affairs as the Padres begin this season’s first road trip today.
An NL West rival had taken them down a peg or two. Key contributors had just landed on the injured list. A promising offense was stuck in neutral.
The ensuing seven-game winning streak helped spur the Padres to the majors’ third-best record.
In this ballpark, especially, it’s an easy thing to remember as the Padres settle into life without Fernando Tatis Jr., however long that lasts.
“The main thing is we stay the same,” Tingler said. “We really don’t panic much. We don’t get too high, get
too down. We understand we can play a better style of baseball. That’s what we’ve got to get to.”
They certainly got to that point last August despite, in a manner of days, losing closer Kirby Yates to an elbow injury for the year and Tommy Pham to a broken hamate for most of the rest of the season. They’d already lost two in a row to the Dodgers and were swept out of Arizona to slip a game below .500.
The about-face that followed — the streak that began in Texas and carried them through a weekend sweep of the Astros — started with Tatis’ (who else?) driving in a careerhigh seven runs, including four on his second home run of the game on the 3-0 swing heard ’round the world.
Such theatrics are shelved for the time being as Tatis begins to rest and rehab the partial shoulder dislocation that brought him to his knees Monday. He was placed on the injured list Tuesday with the hope he can return when the Dodgers meet the Padres on April 16 at Petco Park.
His loss cast a much bigger pall on the season-opening homestand than dropping three of their last four games.
“I think everyone is a little down,” Padres catcher Victor Caratini said through interpreter David Longley. “I think he’s a big part of the team, part of the nucleus of
that group. You want everything to go as well as it can for him and have him back as soon as possible.”
Of course, Tatis wasn’t alone in doing the heavy lifting coming out of last year’s five-game skid.
Wil Myers followed Tatis’ grand slam with one of his own the next day. Machado’s walk-off slam the next night in San Diego got him started on back-to-back NL player of the week nods. Eric Hosmer’s record-setting grand slam arrived the next day and Jake Cronenworth added a fifth slam in six days in the same game that saw Trent Grisham collect three homers.
Today, Grisham is expected to return from the hamstring injury that’s sidelined the Gold Glove center fielder since mid-March.
Before the Padres leave Pittsburgh next week, their
reinforcements could include catcher Austin Nola returning from his fractured finger.
That should help. “We have a great team, top to bottom,” said Myers, who is tied for the team lead with Hosmer with two home runs. “Losing a great player is tough, but we have to go out there and keep being ready to play. We’ve obviously proved that in the past with some of the injuries we had last year and overcoming that with winning streaks. I think that’s what this group is made for and that’s what will happen again.
“Not that we’re going to win (seven) straight right away, but I think we’re going to go out and play really good baseball.”
It’s certainly too early in the season to belabor the point that they haven’t yet.
Not really. Not like last year.
Their eight errors through Wednesday led the majors, although five were committed in a four-game stretch by Tatis before he went to the injured list. The pitching, with a league-best 1.97 ERA, was good enough to win every game on the homestand, but they scored just eight runs over the last four games and were 5-for-24 (.208) with runners in scoring position over that stretch.
Machado has one extrabase hit. Pham doesn’t have any. Four rookies seeing an uptick in action in their injury-depleted lineup — Luis Campusano, Ha-seong Kim, Tucupita Marcano and Jorge Mateo — are a combined 9-for-45 (.200) to start the year.
Again, reinforcements should help lengthen the lineup.
The change of scenery — to a place where their season took off a year ago — can’t hurt.
“That was the timeframe or the moment we started clicking on all cylinders,” Tingler recalled of last year’s first trip to Globe Life Field. “It was a little later in the year last year, but we’d love to get all three or four phases of the game going. If we can get some runs on the board, continue to throw it well both with the starting pitchers and also with our relievers, if we start to get more comfortable, tighten up the defense, hopefully we can get clicking on all cylinders.”