Machado’s toughness brings to mind a former Padre’s MVP year
When Manny Machado rolled his left ankle, wrenching the foot sideways, dropping him in pain, it seemed the Padres’ All-Star third baseman would have to go on the injured list.
Except Machado strolled into the clubhouse the next day, did some baseball work late in the week and in effect coaxed the Padres into not shelving him for 10 days.
“We certainly aren’t going to put Manny on the IL,” Padres manager Bob
Melvin said Sunday, seven days after Machado pretzeled the ankle in Denver.
Severe sprain notwithstanding, Machado looks headed to the batter’s box during this week’s six-game trip, either as a designated hitter or pinch-hitter, perhaps as soon as tonight against the Arizona Diamondbacks and almost certainly during the four games at Dodger Stadium.
Will he pull a Kirk Gibson, hitting a home run off one leg?
The better comparison is Ken Caminiti, the former Padres third baseman who famously warded off dehydration and wooziness in August 1996 to sock two home runs in Mexico and punctuate his MVP season.
Whether he delivers comparable theater, Machado has brought to mind Caminiti’s massive season, not just for his hitting and fielding but also his grit and efforts to lift up teammates.
“This is Cammy’s team,” Padres first-base coach Davey Lopes declared in 1996.
It was a big claim. The Padres were loaded with tough veterans, including Hall of Famers such as Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson and Trevor Hoffman and a steady leader in Wally Joyner.
But Lopes, a former leadoff hitter on star-studded Dodgers teams, wasn’t wrong. Caminiti, intense yet friendly, policed the ’96 Padres with a style that often involved little or no talking. When one frontline player loafed during a game, Caminiti promptly approached him on the dugout bench, bent in front of him, inches away, and glared at him. Message sent, he walked away. When another teammate secondguessed manager Bruce Bochy one time too many, Caminiti collected the player’s street clothes and deposited them in Bochy’s office.
The 2022 Padres are clearly Machado’s team, even before his recent response to the gruesomelooking injury.
Like Caminiti, he’s thrived offensively and defensively. In addition, Machado stood up months ago for Eric Hosmer, his often-criticized, oftenshopped veteran teammate,
who’s responded with a respectable first half. He championed Ha-Seong Kim, the second-year player from South Korea trying to adjust to the American big leagues.
He’s upheld an offense that has lacked Fernando Tatis, Jr. all year and received meager returns from projected regulars Wil Myers and Trent Grisham.
MVP voters demand hard data, and at this date, Machado shows plenty of it — he’s second in the NL in on-base percentage (.400), fourth in slugging (.545), eighth in RBIs (46) and first in win shares (4.3), per FanGraphs.
In World Series win probability added, a Baseball-Reference stat, he’s first in the National League.
As an adornment to the empirical main course, colorful narratives of rare
resilience can’t hurt an MVP candidate. Though not as memorable as Caminiti famously hollering for a Snickers bar after
receiving IV fluids inside the Bull Durham-like clubhouse in Monterrey, Mexico, Machado’s ankle saga qualifies. The sole of his foot,
remember, was bent directly toward the Rockies dugout after Machado had gone skittering across first base and landed awkwardly.