LAMET MAKES EARLY EXIT
Starter strikes out four Brewers in his season debut, but leaves after two innings in the Padres’ 4-2 loss.
It’s as if the Padres own a Mona Lisa, but keep it buried in the kitchen cabinet to use as a TV tray during an episode of Wheel of Offensive Misfortune.
The team’s pitching staff — the ones lucky enough to remain ding-anddent-free — belongs in baseball’s early season Louvre after 20 games. Clutch offense? Check the dumpster in la alley.
Coming into Wednesday’s game against the Brewers at Petco Park, the Padres’ 2.50 ERA and 1.01 walks and hits allowed per innings pitched led baseball. The bullpen’s 99 strikeouts paced the game, as well, with a 2.45 ERA topping the National League.
In spite of all those knee-buckling splitters and sliders, the suddenly wasteful Padres find themselves a .500 team after a 4-2 loss Wednesday. The offense finished 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position, including a cringe-worthy run of three straight strikeouts with the bases loaded in the eighth inning.
With the status of newly returned, possibly injured starter Dinelson Lamet in nail-chewing flux, the Padres
head into a four-game series against the Dodgers — the best team in baseball — coming off a bullpen-soothing day of rest.
Load up the bats. Then, find a way to load up a lot more.
“You get (ticked) off,” third baseman Manny Machado said of the team’s stagnant bats in the clutch. “You want to get those runs in.”
The short-term headache revolves around the health of Lamet, who is being examined after leaving his first start since September after two innings with right forearm tightness.
The long-term migraine involves too many bats with perpetual off switches in the biggest moments. The team that began the day with a baseball-worst 150 stranded runners this season added 11 more as the Brewers swept the three-game series.
In both cases, pass the Tylenol.
“Not being able to cash in, that’s been the theme the last couple weeks,” manger Jayce Tingler said. “That doesn’t mean that’s going to continue to happen. … (But) that’s definitely been our Achilles’ heel so far through the first couple weeks.”
Twenty games in, with the Padres 10-10, is too early to panic. The uncomfortable context, though: The Padres are averaging 8.05 runners left on base, a pace to finish at 1,304 for a 162game season — just 30 shy of baseball’s all-time worst, set by the 1941 St. Louis Browns (8.2).
In the Padres’ last six losses, the team is 7-for-55 with runners in scoring position. That, the math says, translates to a disturbing .127. The season average in those situations is just .216.
“Just gotta click,” said Machado, who is 4-for-17 with a runner at second and/or third, including 0-for-2 on Wednesday. “We’ve definitely played some tough pitching. We’ve faced some horses in the last week. You can’t make any mistakes with those
guys.
“Whenever you get an opportunity to put some on the board and you don’t, they take advantage of it.”
The pitching, meanwhile, continues to by the rescue buoy the offense refuses to grab and ride. In the last five days alone, the Padres wasted a seveninning, four-hit, 13-strikeout, two-walk performance from Joe Musgrove and a seven-inning, nine-strikeout, one-hit outing from Yu Darvish.
The inability to cash in remains beyond confounding. The Padres entered the game tied for baseball’s lead in walks and steals, with the second-lowest strikeout percentage in the game at 18.6.
When runners reach second base? Crickets.
“Those base hits will fall. Those base hits will go through,” Machado said. “Obviously, it sucks that it’s happening to us right now. But better now than later. … As bad as we’ve been playing, we’re still one of the top teams in baseball in a lot of categories.
“We’ve got to keep grinding.
Things will turn around.”
It’s not solely the bats gumming up the offensive works. As the Padres stepped on the field for one more shot at the Brewers, they led baseball in grounding into double plays and found themselves tied with the Angels for the most errors.
That hardly explains the eighth inning, when the Padres loaded the bases with no outs before going strikeout, strikeout, strikeout.
“They know the situation. They understand,” Tingler said of his pressing lineup. “Sometimes maybe they’re trying to do a little too much and carry too much weight instead of having your at-bat, getting your pitch and using the big part of the field.”
The unraveling inning revealed another Padres offensive wart. Things like choking up, shortening a swing, going with pitches to whatever field is necessary too often feel like a thing of the past baseball-wide.
It’s a home run or nothing, here on Home Run
Derby.
The long ball provides exhilarating highlights and draws national notice when Slam Diego clicks. It’s another thing altogether when base runners need lawn chairs. The Brewers, by contrast, finished 2-for-6 with runners who wandered past first base.
“No matter what teams do and how much money they spend, at the end of the day you still have to play the game and every major league team is very capable,” said Brewers second baseman Jace Peterson, who finished with a homer and RBI single.
After Padres outfielder Trent Grisham drove in a run in the third, the team proceeded to go 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position the rest of the way. Ouch. Again.
“If we pitch like this the whole season, we’re going to have a great season,” Padres reliever Craig Stammen said. “The offense is going to kick in.”
Until then, bubble wrap the Mona Lisa.