LEAVING PAST BEHIND
After 16 seasons as QB in NFL, former Helix High standout Alex Smith announces his retirement. Moving on after his costly playoff error with Brewers, Grisham greets former team as Gold Glove outfielder
“He stood there and he answered the questions, and it was a tough time.” Craig Counsell • Brewers manager on Trent Grisham
Craig Counsell is sure he put his arm around Trent Grisham, at least figuratively, in October 2019. Enough time has passed that the Brewers manager can’t recall exactly what was said, but Counsell remembers the firing squad circling his rookie right fielder that night in the visiting clubhouse in Washington.
A top-spun ball in the eighth inning off the bat of Juan Soto had taken an awkward bounce past a charging Grisham. It was all the Nationals needed to make Milwaukee’s playoff run a one-anddone affair. Afterward, the 22year-old looked each reporter in the eye. He was never snippy with his answers when it certainly could have been excused. He was honest about his emotions.
“It’s going to sting for a long time.”
“I was proud of the way he handled himself during the media part,” Counsell said Monday afternoon. “That’s the thing I remember about it. He stood there and he answered the questions, and it was a tough time. And as a rookie it’s a challenging thing to do in a big moment.
“He stood there and he handled it the right way.”
Then he moved on. Literally and figuratively. That offseason’s trade to San
Diego providing perhaps the perfect change of scenery, Grisham — hobbled as he is at the moment — has a Gold Glove on his résumé as he enters this week’s reunion series with the Brewers, not to mention a key role as a catalyst for a team that made the playoffs for the first time since 2006 and expects to do so again.
He homered in three straight games upon returning from the hamstring strain he suffered in spring training, and Padres manager Jayce Tingler hoped Grisham’s tight left quad was improved enough to provide an option off the bench for Monday’s series opener.
“Instantly, he gets back in the lineup and you see a spark in our entire team,” Tingler said of Grisham, who has a .447 on-base percentage in nine games as the Padres’ leadoff hitter. “He’s able to get on base. He gets his bunts down. He drives the ball out of the ballpark. It’s a guy we feel very confident up at the plate in big moments.”
Yes, maybe the first big moment of Grisham’s career chewed him up.
But he rose to the occasion throughout his first year with the Padres, emerging as the pitchgrinding hitter the team had been searching for out of the leadoff spot and leading NL center field
ers with seven defensive runs saved. Not to be forgotten on a young team looking for an identity, his go-ahead home run off Clayton Kershaw last September was a defining moment in the upstart Padres believing they could indeed play with the Dodgers.
It’s all helped Grisham put that crushing error in Washington in his rearview mirror for good.
“I’m confident in my game,” Grisham said. “I think I’m a good player and I’m going to continue to try to keep getting better every day. That’s really all I care about.”
With Grisham out of the lineup Monday, only one of the four players swapped before the 2020 season was on the field, and Luis Urias left in the fourth inning with a calf cramp, although not before hitting a home run.
Right-hander Zach Davies was included in the Yu Darvish trade with the Cubs in December and former first-rounder Eric Lauer was optioned to Milwaukee’s Triple-A affiliate in March after allowing 16 runs in 11 innings last year with the Brewers.
Meantime, former Padres top prospect Urias carried a .154/.353/ .308 batting line into Monday’s start at shortstop in the ballpark where he once envisioned playing opposite Fernando Tatis Jr.
In the months since learning he’d been shipped to Milwaukee, Urias broke the hamate bone in his left wrist, contracted COVID-19 before the 2020 season began and slumped throughout his introductory season to the Brewers (.602 OPS).
On the other side of the country, Urias’ former double-play partner finished fourth in NL MVP voting, signed a $340 million “statue” contract and is the cover athlete on the video game the two grew up playing long before they first became teammates in San Antonio late in 2017, when Tatis jumped from low Single-A Fort Wayne to join the Missions’ Double-A Texas League playoff push.
“It was amazing to share the field those years in the minor leagues, to see a player like him,” said Urias, who was given a vote of confidence as the Brewers’ everyday shortstop when Orlando Arcia was traded to Atlanta earlier this month. “It was a blessing. It was fun. It was a blessing coming up with (the Padres). …
“I’m really grateful for the opportunity that I had.”
Although the two last spoke in spring training, Urias and Tatis do keep in touch semi-regularly through text messages and through Instagram. They’re sure to share some laughs if either one is on second base this week, as is Grisham and his former teammates if his quad allows him to get into action.
His error may be a lasting memory for Brewers fans who had to watch the Nationals go on to win the World Series that year.
But Grisham’s memories run quite a bit deeper. After all, the Brewers drafted him in the first round out of high school in 2015, stuck with him throughout the slow start to his professional career and brought him to the majors to replace an injured Christian Yelich after a breakout campaign in 2019.
Counsell never believed one error, as costly as it was, would define Grisham.
The home that Grisham has made for himself in San Diego is proof it hasn’t.
“It’s one play,” Counsell said. “I don’t think it says anything about him as a player. He had a really nice year last year and you’re happy for him. … Trent has shown the ability to bounce back already in a young career and throughout his minor league career.
“No surprises. I’m happy he’s doing well.”