San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SOTO’S PLATE PATIENCE BEING TESTED
For the second year in a row, Juan Soto led the majors with walks. This time, the 23-year-old walked (135) more often than he reached base via a hit (127) as his batting average sank to a career-low .246.
The split was a bit more extreme in Washington (91 walks, four intentional, to 84 hits) than in San Diego (44 walks, two intentional, to 43 hits), but Soto can admit that the two-hole with the Nationals wasn’t at all like the two-hole in San Diego.
There, he largely had an aging Nelson Cruz and Josh Bell protecting him and it was often crystal clear when the opposition was pitching around him.
With the Padres? A legitimate MVP candidate in Manny Machado.
It’s a difference that’s made it a bit more challenging to navigate the times when Soto has been searching for his A-swing with the Padres, which, to be honest has been most of his stay so far in San Diego.
“I mean when you have a great hitter, an Mvp-caliber player behind you, they don’t want to walk you at all,” Soto said. “If you see, there is not any more four-pitch walks. And it’s kind of tough when you don’t feel your best at the plate and that’s happening. But we have to just keep battling and go through it.”
Soto hit .236/.388/.390 with six homers in 52 games to close the regular season with the Padres and entered Saturday hitting .231/.302/ .282 with two doubles, no homers, four RBIS and just three walks against nine strikeouts, although he has come through in big spots in important wins in each round.
For all the lack of slug in his game this postseason, Soto leads all hitters with 18 balls in play at over 100 mph, four more than Bryce Harper entering Saturday and six more than Machado.
One difference: Six of Soto’s 100-plus-mph balls have been on the ground.
Machado has four 100plus-mph balls on the ground while slugging .525 this postseason and Harper has just two while slugging .857.
“It’s not easy to come into a new place and just hit the ground running,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “He’s gotten some really big hits for us here recently. We always have a good feeling when he’s up. He has a track record of performing consistently in the postseason, all of the above.
“I still think his best work could come here in the postseason for us.”
Check, mate
Jurickson Profar may or may not have checked his swing on a full-count fastball in the ninth inning Friday. He certainly felt he did.
“I thought I didn’t go, and it should have been a walk,” he said. “… Maybe the bat was in front, but I was just getting out of the way. I didn’t go. I didn’t swing.”
That is not how third base umpire Todd Tichenor saw it, as he ruled Profar’s bat had gone far enough to be deemed a swing, which was strike three.
Profar was incredulous, even more than he normally is at such things.
After appearing to yell a certain two-word phrase at Tichenor for a third time in rapid succession and kicking the helmet he had thrown, Profar was ejected by home plate umpire Ted Barrett.
Profar is generally animated, and this was a situation where his walk would have given the Padres runners at first and second with no outs. Instead, there was one out and a runner on first. “It was big,” he said. As for his actions afterward:
“We play a game and we play with emotion,” Profar said. “We don’t play soft. We play to win, and I put in emotion. … I’m a guy who plays with emotion. Maybe I could have done better, yes. But it happened.”
Other Padres were diplomatic when asked their assessment of the call. And Melvin indicated he wasn’t convinced either way.
“Originally it looked like it might have gone,” Melvin said. “Go back and look at it, maybe the bat didn’t get out there. It’s a close call, tough one. But maybe not.”
Pulling his punch
Friends from their three seasons in Chicago, Yu Darvish joked that he “might have to punch” Kyle Schwarber after his 488-foot homer off him — the longest in Petco Park’s history — in Game 1 of the NLCS.
The two have caught up this week at Citizens Bank Park.
There was no altercation, for good reason.
“He gave me the gesture,” Darvish said Saturday through interpreter Shingo Horie, “but I kind of backed off because he’s a pretty big guy.”
He added: “We didn’t talk much about baseball. It’s more about how our families are doing, our time in Chicago and all that. He’s a good friend of mine.”
The solo homer that Darvish allowed is one of six he’s allowed this postseason, accounting for all six runs charged to him in three starts: One in his wild-card round win in New York, three in his NLDS win at Dodger Stadium and the solo shots that he allowed to Harper and then Schwarber earlier this week at Petco Park.
For everything that’s at stake in the postseason, Darvish reiterated on Saturday home runs don’t hurt as much if you’re not complicating matters with free passes.
Darvish has an 18-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his 19 innings so far this postseason.
“I don’t think there’s much of a difference between the regular season or the playoffs, giving up solo homers,” said Darvish, who will get the ball in Game 5 today against Zack Wheeler. “Sometimes you just have to kind of accept, be OK with it, because there will be home runs.”
Nola, again
Through Friday, Austin Nola’s 87 innings behind the plate not only lead all catchers this postseason, they are just five shy of the Padres record set by Carlos Hernandez during the 1998 World Series run.
Although Melvin said he’d check with Nola before penciling him into Saturday’s lineup, he admitted that losing Friday’s game altered his line of thinking, even with Nola already earmarked to catch Darvish on Sunday, as he’s done all year.
“He feels good,” Melvin said. “Based on the fact we lost (Friday), it’s a little bit different dynamic going into a game that we’re down 2-1 in the series.”
Besides, what was Nola going to say? Can’t go?
“Pffftt,” Nola said Friday night. “Never.”
jeff.sanders@sduniontribune.com kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com