[I bet Josh'll approve of that one.]
Your 2023 World Series pick, everybody! Nobody has more than 14 RBIs, the Opening Day starter's 0-4, and the only guys playing well are the newbies who don't seem to have gotten the memo.
It is clear to all involved parties that the single best thing about the Padres' April has been Xander Bogaerts, and for what they're paying him he had better be. Bogie is hitting .316 with 31 hits, 12 RBIs and 5 homers, and that's a perfectly nice stat line. It stands out even more because Machado, Tatis, Nola, Soto and Grisham aren't hitting well at all. Soto's hitting below the Mendoza line, and only his defense is making him a key asset at the moment. Having people like Cronenworth and Kim doing well at the present moment is nice and all, but when most of the five-tool division of the lineup is failing on multiple levels, you kind of have to step back and reassess.
What's weird is that the Padres are getting a lot from some of their older power hitters, like Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter. Carpenter's been a pretty fun DH so far, leading the Padres in RBIs with the aforementioned 14, and already homering twice. I do wish some of the power on this team was a little bit more substantial, and was coming from people who are younger than 37, but hey...the Padres can have a slow start, I guess.
Also, still very weird to me that Carpenter is still a cool and interesting figure to me and not at all infuriating given that he spent 80% of his career playing for infuriating Cardinals teams.
The other thing weighing down the Padres' rotation is that it is now beginning to sink in to the Padres how risky it is to build a rotation around 5 people over 30. Not that anyone, besides Blake Snell, is doing too badly, but without the younger players like Chris Paddack, Joey Lucchesi, Eric Lauer, MacKenzie Gore and Nick Margevicius, they just have a bunch of contracted guys rounding the second decade of MLB service. To their credit, some of these guys, like Yu Darvish and Seth Lugo, are playing well. And yes, though Joe Musgrove's first start back was dicey, he's catching up after being injured for a bit. It's people like Michael Wacha that, although good ideas at the time, are underwhelming so far, and making them question focusing less on youth. Yes, the Padres do have Ryan Weathers doing well enough, but with all the starters active at the moment, Weathers is back in the minors, which isn't...great.
At the very least, the Padres got the old Josh Hader back. After a torrid time after coming over from Milwaukee, Hader has felt rejuvenated and revitalized, and has 9 saves and a 0.75 ERA so far. Hader is, in fact, leading both the NL and the MLB in saves, and though David Bednar, Jordan Romano and Emmanuel Clase are all creeping up, Hader makes it look the easiest, and might be one of the slickest, cut-and-dry closers left in the league. Granted, something else might throw off his mood in the next few months, you never know at this rate, but hopefully Hader continues to be one of the Padres' most stable assets.
I know it's only one month, but the Padres are off to a rocky start, and need a better May in order to retain their status as NL contenders.
Coming Tomorrow- Yeah, uh...I think maybe all the people who priced his rookie cards so high knew what they were talking about.
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