“Padres–Summer Soap Opera”

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It was an awful day in Rancho Bernardo where I live.

The summer heat is driving me crazy, and the Tuesday afternoon temperature outside my home office reached “112” degrees, and that did not include the heat index.  On top of that the Santa Ana winds showed up.

The summer heat is about to descend on anyone, everyone affiliated with the Padres, after the worst modern day collapse in franchise history.

Everybody had something to say in the midst of this messy losing streak that ruined a summer of baseball.  Everyone had something to say about the ugly disappointing dugout spat between Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis.

And the manager Jayce Tingler had something to say about all the national baseball reports he has lost his team emotionally, lost the clubhouse, and lost all these games.

And the team got rid of its Farm Director, Sam Geaney, who oversaw the number one ranked farm system for a 6-year run, till all the prospects were traded away by the free-wheeling General Manager.  A farm system that was a combined 56-games below .500 as of first pitch last night.

Silent thru all this, GM-AJ Preller and lead owner Peter Seidler

So much to pay attention to.

Tingler is great at baseball philosophy, is not a finger pointer, but this is his clubhouse, his disaster in the dugout and on the field.  If he is removed, it’s the third managerial change his GM has made since 2015.

And if Tingler goes, so does the coaching staff, where there has been constant upheaval since the Andy Green days.

Machado and Tatis wanted to apologize to the fans for the flareup that went global on social media.  The 300M third baseman ripping into the 340M shortstop over  his sulking as the season has crumbled.  I am a big believer in body language, and don’t like what I have seen from either of them as this summer has become emotionally draining.

Winning baseball and earning a playoff spot means groups coming together.  The Brown & Gold have come apart.

The pitching staff has collapsed so badly, that Preller wound up signing arms no one wanted.  Jake Arrieta’s stats were horrific.  The pitching short Phillies gave up on Vince Vasquez who plateaued and then fell off.  They also picked up Shaun Anderson, who had an ERA over 9.00 for woeful Baltimore.

The team that piled up big wins early, with home runs, hot hitting, stolen bases, has lost their ways.  They seldom hit homers.  The dangerous batting order has been fragmented.  The slumps have been extended.  The team that stole bases and created runs and rallies seems to have an empty gas tank.  Defensive breakdowns are happening more often now than early.

Geaney oversaw the highly regarded farm system that helped developed Tatis and Chris Paddack..  The number 1-ranked system was ranked last week 18th in baseball, because of bad seasons, and the fact Preller traded away so many draft picks to acquire veterans.

You only need to look at the batting order to understand there is not one Padres developed player in the lineup.  The 26-man roster has two of their own players, a struggling Ryan Weathers and an oft-ailing Dinelson Lamet..

This must be a shockwave of a summer for Seidler, a two time cancer survivor.  He gave his GM a record 171M budget.  He let him eat enormous contracts to get rid of players they made mistakes on.  He has watched  the surgery count to all these damaged pitchers mount.

The only critique one should direct at Peter Seidler is this.  Why would you give Preller a contract extension that runs thru 2026, when the team had not really won anything yet.  Now he is stuck with a baseball leader who has made bad hires, made too many trades, burned thru so much money, and put his trust in players in his clubhouse who don’t seem to be leaders.

A summer soap opera gone bad, it’s season likely to be cancelled shortly.

The heat on everyone at Petco Park could exceed 112-degrees too.  It should.

The Padres failed to explode to become an elite team.  They seem to be imploding instead.

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