AVILA’S STANDING AS SOLID AS EVER
Pedro Avila already had undergone Tommy John surgery after a promising debut in 2019 when the Padres designated him for assignment, casting him into free agency.
The venture lasted about an hour before Avila signed a minor league deal with the team that gave him his first real opportunity.
He simply wasn’t all that interested in exploring his options.
“Honestly, I prefer to die here,” Avila said through interpreter Danny Sanchez.
Avila has since been off and on the 40-man roster and up and down from Triple-A El Paso, although his current standing in the clubhouse is as solid as ever.
The 26-year-old righthander has allowed two runs in 181⁄3 innings in the majors this year and one in 91⁄3 innings directly after Rich Hill was chased from each of his two starts.
The 43-year-old Hill has allowed nine runs in 61⁄3 innings since his trade from the Pirates, but the Padres do not currently have plans to switch their roles on Thursday.
“Look, Avila will be in position to pitch that game as well,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “But we brought Rich over here for a reason. Experienced guy that’s been
through these things. I know he hasn’t been happy with the first two performances, but I think that just means the next one will be that much better.”
Avila’s availability, of course, depends on if he’s needed to back up Blake Snell today.
To date, his only start in the majors this year was four innings of one-run ball in a spot start for Joe Musgrove on Aug. 1. Most of his minor league work this year, however, was as a starting pitcher in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, where an 8.57 ERA did little to suggest he was capable of emerging as a legitimate bigleague asset.
Then again, few pitchers emerge from the Pacific Coast League — with an average ERA of 5.85 — with
pretty numbers for the back of their baseball cards.
Avila is used to the conditions.
He posted a 3.22 ERA in 221⁄3 innings there in 2021, a 4.58 ERA in 112 innings there last year and spent a good deal of his offseason fortifying the mental aspect of his game.
It’s served him well stomaching some stinkers with the Chihuahuas, as well as the waiting game for the next time the big-league bullpen phone rings for him.
“I try not to get anxious or think too much ahead,” Avila said. “Really what I try to focus on is being ready every day, whether that’s one, two, three, four, five innings, whatever the team needs from me. I just need to be ready to do that.”
Of course, that the Padres
need him in San Diego instead of El Paso is no small consolation.
“Obviously, it’s been a lot of ups and downs,” Avila said. “Especially with the surgery and the arm, but the team and the front office has shown a lot of confidence in me and that’s really allowed me to work hard to get back here.”
Not yet
The Padres’ playoff odds have dwindled to 17.7 percent, according to Fangraphs.com, leading Melvin to acknowledge the need to manage more aggressively moving forward.
Josh Hader’s usage, however, is unlikely to change for another couple weeks despite the Padres’ closer being called upon just twice while the team has gone 4-8 since the trade deadline. His reasoning is two-fold. One, there’s Hader’s preference to be limited to one inning until late in the season, as was the case last fall when his only one-plus of the year was to finish off the Dodgers in Game 2 of the NLCS.
“I think once we get to September you can start seeing a little bit different,” Melvin said. “That’s always been kind of his buildup.”
And two, Melvin isn’t so sure how calling Hader into games sooner will help a bullpen that’s allowed a 5.59 ERA this month, the ninthworst mark in the majors.
Steven Wilson (11.57 ERA),
Scott Barlow (11.12) and
Robert Suarez (10.13 ERA), in particular, have all struggled mightily in August, Nick Martinez (5.40) has been shaky in relief of late and
Luis García (0.00) pitched himself into mop-up duty well before this month.
If Hader protects a lead in the seventh or eighth, who gets the last three outs?
“I don’t know how that would help if the ninth inning is still the one that you need to finish off a game,” Melvin said. “Maybe on the road it could look a little bit different going forward, but we still look at (Hader) as our closer and that’s the guy who pitches the ninth inning.”
Notable
Ben Gamel got his first start with the Padres on Tuesday as Trent Grisham, in a 1-for-20 rut, was given the day off. Gamel started in right field as Fernando Tatis Jr. moved to center field for his third start this season.
• LHP Ray Kerr was optioned to Triple-A El Paso to make room for Wacha’s activation. Kerr had allowed runs in four of his five appearances this month (5 ER, 61⁄3 IP), pushing his ERA in the majors this year to 6.28 over 141⁄3 innings.