Empty Threats

 

The Padres, like last year, are firmly in second place, a few games behind the Dodgers, in attempt to intimidate them for the division. Unlike last year, I have no idea how the heck they can be intimidating when they lineup's barely showing up as it is.

I mean, look. Since 2024 we've been building around a core of Machado, Tatis, Merrill, Bogaerts. Okay. Manny Machado has 9 home runs and 28 RBIs, but he's hitting .171 and has a -0.4 WAR, some of the most pitifully one-dimensional numbers of his entire career. You can see he's trying but he's just not having a good time up there. Fernando Tatis, despite hitting .268 with a team-leading 55 hits...cannot hit home runs anymore. It's not happening. Whatever took him down a year or so ago, whatever injury, that took his power ability away. We're two months into the season and we're JUST NOW getting to his first homer of the season. He launched one last night. Need I remind you, this man hit FORTY-TWO before, and he started a lot earlier than May 30th. I know his father put up a high bar for squandering sky-high potential, but you can't seriously be chasing that. Jackson Merrill, meanwhile, is only hitting .201 with 5 home runs and 21 RBIs, possibly with the opposite problem as Machado where he's still technically pre-peak. Xander Bogaerts is at least producing runs, he's got 5 homers and 25 RBIs, but that's the best of the four.

And so it's been up to people like Gavin Sheets, Miguel Andujar, Ramon Laureano and Ty France to do most of the work, and it really shouldn't. They're the supplemental guys, they help you out. Sheets leads the team in OPS with .834, and he's got 9 dingers of his own, and...it's very nice, but he should be among a bunch of people driving in the runs. It shouldn't be him leading the charge. Laureano's ONCE AGAIN doing more work than he should for a cheap contract, just not as prominently as in Baltimore. France is hitting .287, has 6 homers and 17 RBIs, and is finding success he never was able to in San Diego. Seeing him in the same infield as Machado is wild. Even wilder that France is playing better.

The runs are getting produced, but the core isn't really responsible. Thankfully, with a pitching staff this good it doesn't really matter. King, Vazquez and Giolito are holding things down for 6 innings, then you go to honestly any bullpen guy and you're good. This year Bradgley Rodriguez is the big standout, but Jeremiah Estrada, Wandy Peralta, Jason Adam, Yuki Matsui and, well, Mason Miller, are all having excellent seasons. So really, the dysfunction in the lineup isn't as much of an issue as it could be because the rest of the team's doing what it should be doing. It ain't pretty, but it's working.

In order to FINALLY catch the Dodgers, they're gonna need the stars to step up and flip the script on their seasons. Cause if not, there's really no point. We've proven that Tatis can hit homers again. He needs to prove that the recovery period is over, and that he's gonna keep hitting them at a gradually accelerating rate. Y'know, like a ballplayer might.

Coming Tonight: 8 years after divebombing his career after a trade to a competitor, one of the most consistent pitchers of the 2020s continues his excellent run in Toronto.