Death by attrition
The San Diego Padres lost a heartbreaker to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 16 innings last night, and it felt like a microcosm of everything that's been going wrong with the team for a while.
I think the best description of what happened last night between the Dodgers and Padres was this:
The two teams got together in Petco Park last night to play a less-than-thrilling version of “Who wants it less?”, which is really a shame because it felt like the Padres’ hopes of making the playoffs this year laid in the balance.
You know what, let’s not skip over the good that happened…
The Old Snell
That was a different Blake Snell that we saw on the mound last night. Different, at least, from the guy we’ve seen all season long with the San Diego Padres.
Technically, statistically, that was just Snell’s third best game of the season. However, if you were watching, you know that’s not the case.
Snell was dominant, confident, working fast and mixing pitches in a way that is reminiscent of when he was a Cy Young winner for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Yes, the Padres would go on the squander the opportunity, but this was a great sign for a pitcher that is signed to a big contract for a few more years. It’s probably too early to say that firing Rothschild fixes everything with Snell, but a few more starts like that and the conclusion will be undeniable.
Personally, I was not a fan of Tingler leaving him in. Not even in the moment. Snell had already thrown more pitches than he had all season and the Padres were going to ask for even more? With a one-run lead? The risk led to a a solo home run that tied the game and would be the last run scored for hours. Not Snell’s fault, even if we hear later that he threatened to kick Tingler’s ass if he pulled him.
Tatis shows signs of life
Fernando Tatis Jr., since returning from another shoulder injury and getting moved to the outfield, has been atrocious at the plate. He continued that last night, going 0-6 with a bunch of strikeouts before coming up in the 15th and doing this:
I don’t want to be picky about dingers, but that doesn’t look like a Tatis HR. That’s less of a bomb than it is a screaming line drive that just barely got over the wall. I don’t know what the line-drive version of a wall-scraper is, but that.
Personally, I think something is wrong with Tatis, but I’m wary to blame it on the shoulder or him coming back too soon. I think that, after playing shortstop his whole life, Tatis is trying to adjust mentally to an outfield role that keeps him far away from the action and on an island for much of the game.
Still, he probably needed that HR to break out of his slump. It would be nice to see him catch fire again in hopes of defending his lead in the NL MVP race, even as the team continues to give games away.
About that Rothschild firing…
There are stories that were written when Jayce Tingler was hired and Larry Rothschild was added to the staff that alluded to Rothschild being something of a trainer for the inexperienced Tingler.
Rothschild has previous experience as manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, and has spent decades inside of MLB dugouts working with some of great managers. The idea was that he would hold Tingler’s hand and keep him from making any blunders.
We never really saw Rothschild doing any actual hand-holding, and A.J. Preller let Tingler make the move to fire Rothschild, so we all thought that the training either hadn’t occurred or was over. Maybe we were wrong.
In the two games since Rothschild was let go, it’s been head-scratching decision after head-scratching decision from Jayce. It’s time to start wondering, out loud, if Tingler is in over his head when it comes to game management. Even employees of the team are starting to question it.
That is one of about five really bad mistakes made by Tingler last night that definitely took runs off the board and made it harder for the Padres to win.
My personal (least) favorite was when he brought in Jake Marisnick as a defensive substitute for Wil Myers, who had made some really great plays in LF early in the game, only to pinch hit Tommy Pham in his place one inning later.
If you’re wondering why Tingler was without hitters off his bench in extra innings, you could start by asking why he decided to pull Myers or why he used Marisnick for one inning before pulling him. Maybe ask why he was using defensive substitutions in a tie game, too.
I saw a report that Tingler claimed Myers had “a hamstring deal” that led to him getting pulled, but he left that out of his reasoning when directly asked about it after the game.
If you want a shorter version of that answer, or you just don’t feel like watching, Tingler basically said he pulled Myers because he didn’t think the game would go as long as it did.
He forgot to have backup plans. In the 10th inning. As the manager of a baseball team. He just assumed everything would go exactly as he expected it to. Maybe that’s why things never seem to work out well for ol’ Jayce.
To me, what was inexcusable was not double-switching in Stammen/Caratini for the 10th. Once Nola makes the final out in the ninth, you know he's the ghost-runner. So if you're gonna pinch-run for him anyway, plug Stammen into the 4 spot (which lets you use Cronenworth as the ghost-runner) and put Caratini 9th. Same outcome as they got, except (a) you might be able to use Stammen for 2 innings and (b) you still have Kim.