San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
MELVIN EYES FIVE-MAN, TO START
Nick Martinez is expected back in Padres camp today. That’s good, in part because of who isn’t here.
Joe Musgrove was scheduled to return to San Diego on Saturday to have his delivery analyzed to make sure he is staying true to his usual movements and not inviting injury by somehow compensating because of his fractured big left toe. Regardless, he won’t be pitching at the start of the season.
Yu Darvish is in Miami with Japan’s World Baseball Classic team, and he could be there through Tuesday’s championship game. When and how much he pitches in Monday’s semifinal or the final is not something the Padres know, which means they don’t know when or if he can pitch for them in spring training, which means they don’t know what he will be able to do on March 30 when his previously presumed opening day start comes around.
Darvish threw 48 pitches in three innings March 10 and then surprised the Padres by throwing 27 pitches in two innings on March 16. Martinez threw 57 pitches in 22⁄3 innings for the United States on March 12.
Even the extra pitches Darvish threw in the bullpen after his second appearance and the extra work Martinez has done since his start can’t match game action.
Now the most likely candidate for that first start of the regular season might be Blake Snell based on how he is lined up and how he is built up.
At this point, it seems innings are almost certainly going to be an issue early. That makes it likely the Padres will pad their staff early in the season with long relief options. The question is how the Padres will work through the early weeks with Musgrove’s return uncertain and Darvish and Martinez’s endurance level unknown.
“It might be more difficult at this point to go six (starters) without Joe,” Melvin said. “And if we have guys like Yu and Nick that might not be able to go out there for five or six (innings), you need some bullpen arms to be able to combat that.”
The Padres almost certainly will go with a six-man rotation once Musgrove returns, but Melvin reiterated Musgrove will not make it back to pitch “the first time around” in the rotation. He also said there is no guarantee Musgrove will achieve his goal of pitching April 6 in the season’s seventh game.
“We need to be careful with him,” Melvin said. “We don’t want to push him too hard, as much as he wants to. We’ve got to make sure he’s 100 percent when he goes back out there, and we feel like we have enough depth to be able to cover that.”
The leading candidates for two available spots to help Nabil Crismatt provide long relief in Musgrove’s absence are Jay Groome, Brent Honeywell and Julio Teheran.
Good start
If a game in the middle of spring training can be highly anticipated, this one was. And if a spring training game can vividly illustrate what is possible, this one did.
The Padres were down five runs to the Brewers before they got their first hit. They led 7-6 by the time the bulk of their starting lineup left after the fifth inning.
“We definitely have the length of the lineup, one through nine, to be able to do some damage,” Manny Machado said. “No lead is too much. We’ve just got to be able to continue to swing the bat and play as a team. I think we do that, our lineup is pretty deep.”
Giving credence to Machado’s assessment was that the first Padres batter to get a hit was No. 9 hitter Luis Campusano, who hit a home run with two outs in the third.
Machado, who was batting third, led off the third with a home run. Xander Bogaerts followed with a single and scored two batters later on Trent Grisham’s double.
After Campusano led off the fifth with a double, Fernando Tatis Jr. drove him home with his second single of the day. Tatis scored on Machado’s double. Jake Cronenworth, the No. 5 hitter, completed the comeback with a two-run homer.
Among the top five hitters, only Juan Soto was hitless.
“Took us a little while today but you’re gonna put pressure on pitchers, regardless, even when you’re making some outs,” Melvin said of the lineup after the Padres won 11-6. “… Probably a matter of time today. Their guy pitched really good early on. Once we got a little momentum, started swinging the bats, it’s good to see.”
Melvin also had Tatis batting leadoff on March 2 in the only other game Tatis played with Soto and Machado. Soto and Machado are likely locked into the 2-3 spots, Melvin has said. He also repeated this assessment Saturday morning:
“Can you really go too wrong with all this?”
In the zone
Cronenworth is one player Melvin has been touting all spring.
“A guy that doesn’t get talked about a ton with the first four is Croney,” Melvin said Saturday morning. “I think Croney is going to have a big year this year.”
It was just a couple days earlier that Melvin said, “I think he’s poised to maybe have his best year yet this year.”
Melvin bases his prediction on the fact a hip injury that hampered him last season is in the past, the continued work Cronenworth has done and the belief hitting in this lineup will help virtually everyone in it.
But there is support for the assertion, too, in Cronenworth’s blazing spring. Cronenworth went 1-for-3 Saturday and is batting .412 (14-for-34) with a 1.222 OPS this spring. He has three doubles, a triple and two home runs. Melvin seems to favor batting Cronenworth fifth most days.
Notable
Top prospect Jackson Merrill was reassigned to minor-league camp Saturday after a run in spring training that saw the 19year-old shortstop playing plenty and left the Padres decision-makers loving what they saw. Merrill is hitting .242 (8-for-33).
• There are 56 players remaining in big-league camp after catchers Juan Fernandez and Chandler Seagle, infielder Max Schrock and outfielder Preston Tucker were reassigned along with Merrill.
• Nelson Cruz returned to camp following the WBC, where he got just one plate appearance for the Dominican Republic. Cruz said his focus in the remainder of spring training is to “just make sure I get my at-bats.” He was 0-for-3 Saturday and is 5-for-22 this spring. He likely will load up on at-bats in minor league games in addition to Cactus League appearances.