Good morning,
Baseball folks are fond of saying this time of year that the only thing that matters is getting the win.
Last night — as significant and exciting as the Padres’ victory over the White Sox was — did not feel that simply defined.
The Padres, widely considered a real threat to make a deep postseason run in part because of the depth of their bullpen, are leaking at what is supposedly their deep end.
Closer Robert Suarez issued a two-out walk and then threw another fastball down the middle that got smacked over the wall in the ninth inning last night.
It was the third game-tying or go-ahead homer he has surrendered in his past six appearances. He has yielded at least one run in five of his past 10 appearances. His ERA in 17 appearances since Aug. 8 is 5.40, 3½ times what it was in 44 games before that.
You can read in my game story (here) about manager Mike Shildt saying there will be “consideration” given to what to do in such situations going forward.
He alluded to the presence of Jason Adam and Tanner Scott as high-leverage options along with Suarez and went on to say that what Suarez might need is to vary his offerings.
“I think he’s got to be able to mix in … something else occasionally to righties,” Shildt said. “He’s got the changeup. The ability to throw another pitch is going to be important for him. The fastball velocity is plus. He made a lot of good pitches. He’s one strike twice from being able to bring it home but wasn’t able to. But, you know, my concern with Robert is not very high.”
But there is concern. There has to be.
Suarez was mostly focused on the fact he sent a 100 mph fastball to Lenyn Sosa to the center of the strike zone, much like the one the Giants’ Heliot Ramos hit on Sunday at Oracle Park.
“I think it’s location,” Suarez said through interpreter Danny Sanchez. “That last pitch that he hit out kind of leaked over the middle.”
The need to mix the repertoire and the need to hit his spots more consistently are not mutually exclusive issues.
We heard all year, as Suarez has thrown his four-seam fastball nearly three-quarters of the time, that a well-located 101 mph fastball with the kind of late burst Suarez has can be enough. It certainly was for most of the season.
But what is broken at least a little bit can eventually be hit by big-league batters, and it must be fixed.
“I think that there is a mix that needs to be there,” pitching coach Ruben Niebla said last night. “If you go back and (see) what’s happened here in the last few weeks, it’s like more changeups are showing up, more two-seamers (sinkers) are showing up. So that’s going to be part of the mix.”
Suarez also has a cutter, which is sometimes referred to as his slider, but has thrown it just three times this season.
Niebla said that could be part of the mix going forward, but added, “We’re not going to go and start doing something different than what he’s been so successful doing pretty much all year.”
Even as Suarez’s use of the other two pitches has increased, he has stuck with the four-seam fastball 83 percent of the time with two strikes over his past 13 games. That is eight percentage points higher than before this stretch. Now, of course he is going to go with his best pitch most of the time in that instance. But when he is as predictable as he has become and hitters have seen the pitch as often as they have and he is getting too much plate, bad things are more likely to happen.
There is another potential factor that can not be easily dismissed, even though Suarez and Shildt did so.
And that factor is Suarez’s workload.
“He has gotten his opportunities to pitch, for sure,” Shildt said. “That’s what guys that pitch at the end of the game when you’ve got the lead do.”
It is true that the 33-year-old Suarez has thrown just the sixth-most innings among primary closers this season. But his 62 innings are more than twice his total last year (27⅔) and his most since throwing 62⅓ in 2021 in Japan. (He threw 80⅔ there in 2019.)
For all he has worked, the Padres have been able to give Suarez relatively ample rest this season. He was working on two days’ rest last night after pitching three days in a row before that. He had pitched once in nine days leading up to that run.
“I feel good,” Suarez said. “I’ve been able to maintain my velocity. On the mound, I feel good. At the end of the day, he hit the pitch out, but we won the game. So that’s all that matters.”
On the front end
Joe Musgrove turned in his fifth quality start in his past six outings, throwing six scoreless innings while allowing four hits and striking out nine last night. His ERA (3.95) is now lower than it has been all season.
In eight starts since returning from the injured list after 2½ months rehabbing myriad elbow issues and retooling his delivery, Musgrove has a 2.05 ERA over 44 innings. (And that includes a freak six-run inning.)
“Just to feel physically healthy feels really good,” he said. “And I know at this point in the year, everyone’s going through a little bit of something. I’m probably the freshest guy we’ve got with the time I missed. It feels good to be able to be back in the mix and pitch every fifth day and contributing.”
And that is just the beginning of the good news for the Padres.
Over the past seven games, the team’s five starting pitchers have combined to allow three runs in 44⅓ innings. Five times in that span, they have gone at least six innings without allowing a run. In 16 games since Sept. 1, the rotation has combined for a 2.28 ERA over 90⅔ innings, third best in the majors.
“It’s the right time for everybody to start clicking, peaking at the right time,” Musgrove said. “… Starting pitching kind of runs everything. If your starting pitching is good, you’re always in every game. And with this offense, we feel really good we can win a lot of games.”
It appears likely the Padres are going to be in a fight for a home series in the wild-card round (or possibly to win the National League West and get a first-round bye) pretty much to the end. So if they do end up playing in the wild-card round, they probably won’t have much choice (if any) in how they line up their starters for that series because they wil have employed them all next week in the final six games of the regular season.
If so, it is a good thing it might not matter all that much who starts for them.
“This is kind of the problem you want to have is having one too many arms rather than one too few,” Musgrove said. “We feel really good. It’s going to be hard to decide who gets the ball in that first game, everyone is doing so well.”
Playoff picture
With their win and the Braves’ loss yesterday, the Padres took two big steps toward locking up a playoff spot.
Any combination of Padres victories and Braves losses adding up to three will secure a postseason berth for the Padres, meaning it is possible for them to clinch in their final home game Sunday.
The Diamondbacks also won, so the Padres remained two games up in the race for the NL’s top wild-card spot (and the home field for the wild-card series).
The Padres’ goals remain higher than that.
They are four games behind the Dodgers in the NL West, a deficit made infinitely more surmountable by the two teams playing a three-game series beginning Tuesday in Los Angeles.
It is still a pretty big deficit, not only because sweeping the Dodgers is quite the task but also because the Dodgers’ only other remaining opponent is the Rockies, who have the National League’s second-worst record (59-95).
“If we want to get to where we ultimately want to get, which is taking that top spot from the Dodgers, we’ve got to win every game,” Musgrove said. “So I think that’s our main focus. And then whatever else falls how it may. But I think if we put our focus on finding ways to win every day, we get some good momentum and some good confidence going into playoffs. And whatever spot we’re in, whether it’s the division or a wild-card spot, playing the way that we’re playing right now with the right focus is going lead to a lot of good things.”
Getting it done
It’s one thing to wake up being Manny Machado, with more talent than even 90 percent of major leaguers and knowing you will play virtually every day.
It’s another to be Tyler Wade, who has started once in the Padres’ past 17 games (22 days) and has appeared in the field just three other times (four innings) in that span.
So that makes it pretty impressive Wade can be counted on in big situations.
He entered last night’s game as a pinch-runner for Donovan Solano in the bottom of the ninth and then played second base in the 10th. He ran toward the bag to field a grounder and throw to first for the first out of that inning. And he ran in to grab a chopper on the grass and throw out a runner at home for the second out.
“That’s why I’m out there every single day,” Wade said of his pregame work with infield coach Tim Leiper. “Moments like that is why I do it.”
Kim conundrum
You can read in Jeff Sanders’ pregame notebook (here) about Ha-Seong Kim testing his shoulder by playing catch yesterday.
While he looked stronger than last week, it certainly did not appear Kim was close to returning. He did not make throws across diamond and did not throw anywhere near full intensity.
One question is what the Padres would do with Kim if he does come back.
Xander Bogaerts isn’t leaving the lineup. Neither is Jake Cronenworth, at least against right-handed pitchers.
Perhaps the Padres would move Kim to second base and platoon him with Cronenworth.
Cronenworth is batting .201 with a .273 on-base percentage against left-handed pitchers after going 2-for-2 last night, including getting a single off Garrett Crochet. Kim is batting 20 points higher (.248) against lefties than he is against righties with an on-base percentage (.351) that is 29 points higher than against righties.
Tidbits
- All three of the Padres’ two-out hits (singles by Jurickson Profar and Machado and a double by Jackson Merrill) that resulted in them taking a 2-0 lead in the sixth inning came with two strikes. The Padres are batting .205 with two strikes, nine points better than the second-ranked Diamondbacks.
- Last night’s crowd of 45,790 was the fourth largest of the season and the fourth largest in Petco Park history. Both of the remaining home games will easily surpass 40,000, which is the threshold to be considered a sellout. It has been a foregone conclusion for weeks that the Padres would break last year’s franchise attendance record of 3.23 million.
- Cronenworth was 3-for-3 with a walk last night and is batting .247 over his past 23 starts. That is exactly what his season average was at the start of this stretch. His OBP over those 23 games, however, is .366, which is 46 points higher than his season mark when this stretch began. He is chasing pitches out of the zone at a lower rate (19 percent compared to 24 before this run). Cronenworth is also seeing an MLB-high 4.67 pitches per plate appearances over those 23 games compared to 4.06 (26th) before that.
- After starting the season 12-17 against teams that are currently .500 or worse, the Padres have won 31 of their past 40 games against such teams.
- Luis Arraez was 0-for-5 for the second straight game. He has had at least five at-bats in 62 games this season and gone hitless in just seven of those.
- Here’s the updated chart I keep that helps explain the difference between the Padres going 82-80 last season and being 88-66 this season:
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.
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