San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Pham snaps 0-for-19 skid to start Cactus League.
Among the Padres’ projected regulars, only catcher Austin Nola and infielder Ha-seong Kim have appeared in as many games this spring as Tommy Pham. Saturday’s start in left field was his ninth of the spring, second in a row and fourth in five days.
There’s a method to his madness.
Two actually.
The regular action allows Pham to continue to tinker with new contact lenses in search of just the right combination for his vision, which suffers from a condition that causes blurry vision and sensitivity to glare.
He’s also a notorious over-worker who wouldn’t exactly take much of a breather on days he’s left out of a Cactus League lineup.
“His off days, when he’s not in the game,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said, “quite frankly, his workload is probably two to three times greater than the game. Honestly, we have to be careful giving him too many days off.”
Pham lined out sharply to center in his first at-bat Saturday and struck out in his second. A hard-hit single to center in his third at-bat snapped an 0-for-19 skid to start Cactus League play.
“There’s no pressure on our end,” Tingler said. “But Tommy’s a competitor. It’s nice to get that one out of the way.”
Myers scratched
Wil Myers was scratched from Saturday’s lineup with a sore right knee. Tingler elaborated after the game that Myers had been dealing with some inflammation at the top of the kneecap. He went through pregame activity, but it tightened up on him as the temperature dropped to 55 degrees. Myers is day-to-day. Fernando Tatis Jr. also left after his second at-bat, a third-inning groundout. Tingler described the decision as a “little maintenance” as his star shortstop makes his way back from a weeklong bout with the flu.
The second-year manager referenced a play at the plate in the first inning, in which Tatis scored from third on Manny Machado’s pop-up as the shortstop backpedaled into shallow left field. Tatis, who homered in his first at-bat back on Friday, had reached base on an infield single and moved from first to third on a ball that caromed off the pitch.
“That’s just baseball instincts from Tatis,” Tingler said of his star shortstop again scoring on a pop-up.
Still slow-playing Lamet
Dinelson Lamet was all smiles as he walked off the Field 2 mound Saturday morning, his third live batting practice going off again without any red flags. That it was again only one inning makes it highly unlikely that Lamet makes a start through the first turn of the rotation, although Tingler declined to rule out the possibility.
Up next: Another live batting practice, hopefully multiple innings. Lamet may also throw a side session before then.
Lamet’s pitch count has progressed from 15 to 20 to roughly another 20 on Saturday. He threw all of his pitches again and appeared to allow only one clean hit, a line-drive single off the bat of Jorge Mateo. He struck out Brian O’grady once looking.
With Lamet leaving his last regular-season start with elbow discomfort and undergoing platelet-rich plasma therapy over the offseason and the season stretching back to 162 games, the Padres have elected to slow-play his return to the mound.
Opening day is less than three weeks away. The candidates vying for spots — whether the Padres start with a five- or six-man rotation — are currently stretching out to three innings, as left-hander Adrian Morejon did Saturday.
Notable
The Padres agreed to terms with 21 pre-arbitration-eligible players. All players on the 40-man roster are under contract for 2021.