1-Man’s Opinion on Sports-Monday “Padres-Beginning of End”

Posted by on August 30th, 2021  •  0 Comments  • 

“Where Does All This End?”

—-

Where do you begin to describe the collapse of the Padres franchise?

Fernando Tatis shoulder dislocations, which you knew were going to continue to happen, is probably the first domino that fell to impact this teams’ pennant hopes.  That also explains his (6-45) cave-in at home plate.  His aggressiveness at shortstop, his fire on the bases, his flair at bat have all gone missing.  He was the straw that stirs the drink.

Manny Machado’s streakiness is an issue so we get this (9-54) nose dive.  His body language now seems too serene, like the fire has gone out in this long season.

Tommy Pham, who had a (338) hot spell in midseason has faltered again, .now is (5-38) funk again, and he is now talking openly of going somewhere else next season as a free agent.

Eric Hosmer’s number are tailing again, an (11-57) pothole

Trent Grisham is in a (10-54) stretch, though still making great plays on defense.

Adam Frazier’s abilities have disappeared..and so have his appearances in the lineup in the midst of his (8-50) plunge.

The struggles of Ryan Weathers have reached crisis proportions.  We have not seen a highly regarded prospect like this, crater like this, and yet the Padres have sent him out every 5th day to get battered.  Not sure what they see in these outings, with the stats so bad (20inn-31-runs..39 hits…11HR).

The first half of the season,they had 93-stolen bases, creating rallies and putting pressure on pitchers..that has disappeared…something like 5-stolen bases in the last 20-games.

Injuries wrecked the pitching staff, but Yu Darvish is 1-start back from hip problems….Chris Paddack will likely test his oblique issue with a start this week…Jake Arrieta will go back into the rotation, though there is not much trust you can put in a pitcher who had given up (58-runs in 58-innings) before he got hurt in his first start.

Not sure what people are waiting for in Dinelson Lamet.  Throwing 1-inning rehab outings in Lake Elsinore mean little.  It’s more like we are sitting here waiting for him to breakdown again with this chronic forearm-elbow issue.

You can only hope Mike Clevinger, Adrian Morejon, and a host of other surgically repaired pitchers in different stages of rehab in Peoria, can re-emerge this season.

There will be no Mackenzie Gore sighting either.  Yes a couple of good outings in the Arizona Summer League, but that is a 3rd year veteran minor league throwing against 17-18 years old draft picks.  They have 4-weeks left in the minor league schedule to get him some real-live action.  No doubt he has regressed.

The season is more about the erratic outings of Blake Snell, the gritty starts of Joe Musgrave, or the huge contributions of an over worked bullpen.

The firing of pitching coach Larry Rothschild might be the first of off season changes to the coaching staff.

Jayce Tingler has now used 111-different batting orders in a season with no continuity.  With all the people he gets information from in the Padres think-tank, you would believe he’d find a way to re-ignte what was a pretty exciting team that started (34-19)

And you wonder when a critical re-evaluation of GM-AJ Preller’s  method of operations will come under scrutiny?  The signing bonus money paid out.  The massive trade of prospects in deals?  The 20-some surgeries to pitchers?  The evaluation of how they handle the arms in the system?

Make up your checklist of what has befallen Padres baseball this year, and it gets longer and longer.  Somebody with a baseball background needs to evaluate, wrong turns, bad decisions and bad luck.

This is an epic collapse, and something needs to change whether that is philosophy, players, leadership.

Where does all this end?  We know its beginnings for sure.

=========================

Please follow and like us:

Leave a Comment:

Your email address will not be published.