MELVIN EXPECTED TO RETURN VS. S.F.
Bob Melvin has had input on just about everything that has gone on with the Padres the past week.
Tonight in San Francisco, he is expected to return to the bench and actually manage for the first time since May 9.
Melvin, who had prostate surgery May 11, still must get through today feeling strong, but there is considered very little chance he won’t be with the team at Oracle Park for the opener of a three-game series against the Giants. Melvin has been itching to return, and virtually everyone connected to the Padres has said all along that this was the expected outcome.
The Padres have gone 4-2 on this trip and 6-3 overall without Melvin, as bench coach Ryan Christenson has guided them through games.
While Christenson has had a certain amount of autonomy and has filled in as head communicator and counselor, he has spoken and texted with Melvin regularly throughout each day regarding lineups and potential game situations.
Christenson said he has enjoyed the experience of sitting in the big chair but declared after Thursday’s 2-0 victory over the Phillies, “I can’t wait until he gets back.”
Alive, running Wil Myers
has gone first to third three times this trip and ended up scoring each time. He has also
sprinted from first to score twice, once on a double and once on a single and error.
“Between this series and Atlanta, he’s had some of the better baserunning moves I’ve seen,” Eric Hosmer said. “He’s really helped us win games that way.”
None of the others were like what happened in Thursday’s fourth inning.
“That was fantastic,” Christenson said. “I’ve never seen that before.”
Myers was leading off first base after reaching on a single when Robinson Cano lined a ball at 108.5 mph that forced Myers to collapse to his knees as the ball zipped over his head. As he went down, his helmet fell to the dirt. Myers quickly got up, picked up his helmet and ran to third base. He scored on Ha-seong Kim’s sacrifice fly.
“Robbie was headhunting out there,” Myers said with a laugh. “It was good. I was able to get to third and stay alive.”
Taking a break
Jake Cronenworth told Melvin before the season he wanted to play every game. The manager let him know then it almost certainly wasn’t going to happen.
“I was trying,” Cronenworth said Thursday morning, before the first game this season that he was not in the starting lineup. “That would be so awesome.”
Cronenworth played in 152 games in 2021, second on the team to Manny Machado’s 158 and tied for 29th among all position players. Cronenworth missed six games after breaking a finger on his left hand on Sept. 10.
Cronenworth was not used off the bench Thursday. So Machado, who did not start Sunday in Atlanta but pinch-hit in the 10th inning that day, is now the only Padres player to appear in every game this season.
Rested
The past two seasons have been rough on relief pitchers all around MLB. The way COVID played with the schedule made teams even more reluctant than usual to have their starters go deep in games.
For the Padres in 2021, it was injury and inefficiency by their starting pitchers that caused the team to run its bullpen into the ground.
So this year is something new. Yu Darvish on Thursday turned in the rotation’s 20th quality start. It was the 13th game this season in which relievers had to cover fewer than three innings.
And the past four days have been practically unprecedented. The Padres were off Monday and used four starting pitchers to cover 152⁄3 of the 17 innings pitched in the first two games of the series.
Closer Taylor Rogers, who got the save Sunday and Tuesday, is about the only reliever who got taxed in the least.
“He probably might not be available (tonight),” Christenson said after the Padres’ closer worked 11⁄3 innings for his major league-leading 15th save Thursday. “But who knows? We’ll see how he comes in feeling. But yeah, to get the bullpen some rest … was huge, and these guys should be fresh and ready to go for the Giants series.”