PADRES’ BIG STARS BACK IN ALIGNMENT
FRIARS BATTLING BRUSHFIRES ON MULTIPLE FRONTS
“We’re here to take away the distractions of this team. We’ve got bigger f ish to fry. We’ve got bigger things to worry about than something that is not a big deal.” Manny Machado • On the incident
On a pregame Zoom call Tuesday before the Padres met the Giants at Petco Park, manager Jayce Tingler fielded questions about his job security. On the field a short time later, Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. stood shoulderto-shoulder to explain a heated dugout exchange that became the buzz of baseball.
A few feet away, two-fifths of the team’s pitching rotation — Blake Snell and Chris Paddack — slowly walked to the field as recent additions to the growing injured list.
The Padres limped back to San Diego after being swept by the Cardinals, their chief competition for the final NL wild-card spot, as a half-game deficit ballooned to five in the span of a weekend, an off-day and Tuesday.
This is where the 2021 Padres, the earlyseason darlings of baseball, the playoff locks until they weren’t, inexplicably find themselves with less than two weeks to
play.
Brushfires burning, in every direction.
“To have the record we have in the last month, it’s not going to be one thing,” said GM A.J. Preller, draped over a dugout rail. “To get to that point, you’ve got to point to a bunch of different things. A bunch of different factors led to the record over the last month.”
That’s the stark reality of the Padres’ situation. No single sandbag was going to keep the rushing water behind the levee. Leaks sprang here and there and, lately, everywhere.
They’ve fired a pitching coach. Veteran infielder Eric Hosmer delivered a clubhouse talk. They decided, it was revealed Tuesday, against renewing the contract of farm director Sam Geaney. They’ve shuffled the lineup like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer.
None of it worked.
The Padres find themselves in that uncomfortable position of being discussed as “mathematically in it,” a hall of famer in the world of backhanded compliments.
“It’s gotten harder, 100 percent,” Preller said of the faint playoff hopes. “The biggest thing right now is to focus on the last two weeks and start winning games again.”
Questions swirl about the future, or possible lack of one, for Tingler at the conclusion of his second season.
Barring a miraculous stretch run against some of the best teams in baseball, this season seems destined to earn the hard-to-swallow title of most disappointing in franchise history — given the payroll, star power and expectations.
“I don’t do this job for job security or anything like that, and that’s the honest to God truth,” Tingler insisted.
When the inevitable lost-theclubhouse question surfaced, Tingler responded without a hint of frustration or emotion.
“I don’t think I’ve lost the clubhouse,” he said. “Ultimately, we haven’t played the way I think we’re capable of. Let me start with this: As the manager, ultimately, I’m responsible for the players’ performances … I don’t look to point the finger anywhere else.”
Preller, asked directly about Tingler’s status, indicated the time to discuss that would be at the end of the season. To say anything now, of course, is a no-win situation for the general manager.
Still, it remains the single biggest question on the minds of fans desperate for hints of change.
Steps away from Preller, Machado and Tatis had worked to defuse the initially bad optics of the other night in St. Louis, when the former emotionally dressed down the latter as an awful road trip found its awful ending.
“We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” said Machado, calling Tatis “my little brother.”
Preller: “They’re passionate, they want to win.”
No amount of passion fixes the fact that Cardinals, when it mattered most, won nine in a row and 11 of the last 12 heading into this week. In the same stretch, the Padres dropped three straight and eight of 11.
When fates had the chance to change, San Diego dropped 24 of 34.
“This is obviously a huge homestand,” Tingler said. “… Let’s see where we’re at at the end of the two weeks.”
The Padres had a chance to make it truly huge, but a trainwreck road trip pushed everything to the brink of impossible.
When Giants leadoff hitter Tommy La Stella homered to right field against dependable starter Joe Musgrove, fans groaned. When Machado bounced a 423-foot blast off the third deck of the Western Metal Supply Co. building in left to tie it, the crowd awoke.
An at-bat later, Machado pounded one off the second deck.
This all feels like too little, too late stuff, but you play them all out just the same.
The Padres breathed life into the crowd, if not the season in the second. Trent Grisham singled, Musgrove dropped a bunt for a base hit and Tatis sliced an RBI double to right to grab a 2-1 lead.
As the inning ended, the Cardinals’ game in Milwaukee flashed final. St. Louis grabbed the lead in the eighth and fought off a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to survive 2-1, pushing its winning streak to 10.
For the Padres in 2021, it figures.