The Padres need Chris Paddack
Today is a day where Paddack can get back into the good graces of the fans, and when the San Diego Padres needs him the most.
Hello there. Things are bad!
The San Diego Padres are 5-5 in their last 10 games and staring a series loss to one of the league’s worst teams right in the face. Oh, and after today’s game they have to fly cross-country and face the best team in baseball tomorrow.
The good news is that baseball is an impossibly long game. Not just the individual games, although those are longer than any other sport, but the number of games (which is twice as many as any other sport).
Sometimes, because of the sheer number of stuff that happens during an MLB season, you have to take some of it and ignore it. Every team is going to have slumps, even the Dodgers. Every team is going to lose games to teams that they shouldn’t. Every team is going to have a number of injuries occur at the same time.
And, every team (even the best teams), are going to need to rely on players that they are unsure that they can rely on and hope for the best. Last year, this was Jurickson Profar and Jake Cronenworth. This year, it’s going to start with Chris Paddack.
Now, we’ve talked about “The Sheriff” before. One of the first things I wrote this season was how he is a relief pitcher masquerading as a starting pitcher. He’s yet to pitch more than 4 innings in either of his starts this season, giving up 3 runs in each (5 ER total). His 5.63 ERA sticks out in this rotation.
However, the team has no other options right now. It sounds like Ryan Weathers is going to get his first MLB start vs. the Dodgers on Friday (which means he probably flew home yesterday), and MacKenzie Gore is not ready to pitch at this level. Dinelson Lamet was supposed to pitch another game at the Padres’ alternate site yesterday, which would determine if he could join the team next week.
Down 2-1 in a four-game series, the Padres need a couple of things right now so that they can walk into their matchup against the Dodgers with their heads held high:
Good Luck/Defense
Just like my argument that Tommy Pham has been better than his numbers, the victim of some seriously bad luck, the same can be said for Chris Paddack.
Sure, he continues to throw his sinking fastball to the wrong part of the zone, and he’s still afraid to throw his curveball…but the numbers indicate that it shouldn’t be quite this bad. Through two games, Paddack is getting a lot of weak contact that is somehow finding a way to get on base (the defense has been particularly bad behind him). The percentage of his pitches that are getting barreled by opposing hitters is the lowest of his short career.
What ‘The Sheriff’ really needs going forward is stellar defense behind him, and that’s not a big ask. This team was built to be good defensively.
Good Luck/Offense
The Padres have scored just 7 runs in the first three games of this series, opposed to Pittsburgh’s 19 runs. I know the Pirates are probably better than we think, and maybe the Padres are (currently) worse than we think they should be, but 19-7 over three games is an absolute curb-stomping.
Two starting pitchers that are not supposed to be good, Tyler Anderson and Trevor Cahill, gave up 2 runs in 10.1 innings pitched against San Diego.
If a struggling offense reminds you of the bad times of the Padres, you’re not alone. The reason for the struggling offense is two-fold: Some of the team’s best hitters are injured, and some are simply getting off to a slow start.
Right now, the Padres have four of what I would categorize as “good hitters” (OPS above .800) in their lineup: Cronenworth, Hosmer, Myers and Grisham. And Myers is hurt enough to be held to pinch-hitting duties yesterday. And Grisham missed most of spring training with an injury, so he can’t yet play every day for fear of causing another injury.
Grisham is back in the lineup today, but Myers is not. That leaves the offense with two hot hitters in the lineup, Cronenworth batting third and Hosmer batting fifth, to pitch around. That explains why they can’t score any runs right now, a problem that hopefully goes away when Fernando Tatis Jr. and Austin Nola return from their injuries.
Quite simply, Paddack is going to need run support. That means he’s going to need guys like Profar and Machado and maybe even Kim to have big games in Pittsburgh today. Either way, the last third of the lineup (Marcano-Campusano-Paddack) is a big hole and will definitely get pitched to if guys get on base.
The Sheriff
There are different challenges in 162-game season versus a 60-game season. One of the biggest ones is finding enough arms to pitch all those innings.
For those that are already arguing for Paddack to be thrown off the team, or at least sent to the bullpen, the return question should be “Who is going to pitch all of those innings?"
Ryan Weathers has never thrown more than 100 innings in a season and shouldn’t be expected to this year. Ditto, MacKenzie Gore.
Dinelson Lamet went just over 100 innings in his rookie season (2017) before needing Tommy John surgery. Dealing with the elbow injuries he’s had since last year’s playoffs, it’s a good guess that the Padres will be limiting his innings this season, as well.
Ignoring extra inning games, there are 1,458 innings that need to be pitched by the Padres before the playoffs even begin.
Paddack threw 140 innings in 2019 and could do more than that this season, and the Padres will need that from him unless they are going to sign or trade for another seasoned starting pitcher that can. Heck, they might need both.
So, at least for now, Paddack just needs to be better than terrible to stay in the starting rotation. And, so far, that’s exactly what he’s been. However, today his team is relying on him to be a better than that and hoping for the best. He’s the only thing standing between them and a complete disaster before their first season series against the Dodgers, who once again look unbeatable.