The San Diego Padres suffered the most injury damage in Major League Baseball this season when Fernando Tatis Jr. underwent wrist surgery in March. Arguably MLB’s most exciting young star, Tatis could have been the death knell for the Padres’ playoff chances. Instead, the brothers find themselves back in the National League West after 50 games without their young phenomenon in first place while holding the fourth-best record in baseball at 24-25.
San Diego’s offense struggled intermittently in 672 and has repeated that pattern in 672 without Tatis. Luckily for the Padres, their starting rotation runs seven deep and has dominated opponents all season. The team’s starters are 12-23 and ranked third in both ERA (3.10) and WHIP (1.14) and boast a league-best batting average against of .322.
Joe Musgrove leads the way, putting together a Cy Young-style year. The San Diego native leads all of baseball with a 1.50 ERA and is 7-0 with a sparkling 0.93 WHIP. Most importantly, the Padres starters were consistent. Musgrove has circulated in each of his 10 turns. Sean Manaea has nine in 12 starts, Yu Darvish has nine in 12 starts. Meanwhile, rookie MacKenzie Gore was phenomenal, Mike Clevinger was back to his old self after Tommy John’s surgery, and swinger Nick Martinez grew more valuable in his role with every appearance. The only starter who’s really struggling is Blake Snell and even he’s been pretty good in three of his last four starts.
Pitching is a big reason the Padres are where they are, but Manny Machado also deserves a bunch of credit. San Diego’s other Superstar leads the National League in fWAR (3.5) while scoring .93/.
The Padres’ current rank 24th Leaguewide in OPS (.672) — which is awful — and their teamwide slugging percentage of .361 ranks 25th. These numbers are unsustainable over the long term for a team trying to assert themselves. However, lately there have been signs of life from the crime. Jake Cronenworth and Luke Voit have started to break out of seasonal slumps, and Trent Grisham has also shown signs of life. Meanwhile, Jurickson Profar leads all NL left fielders in fWAR (1.7). Unfortunately, the Padres still don’t take much offense from their other outfielders and Eric Hosmer has experienced the kind of sustained slump that has plagued his time with the franchise.
The Padres need the boost Tatis can give and they need it when it’s ready. He has yet to start swinging a racquet as the team wary of his 23-year-old Superstars recovery. There is hope that he will return sometime in July. Until then, pitching must continue to carry the team unless general manager AJ Preller can find another consistent hitter.
2022
