It's clear that there's a lot of teams that are already looking a lot different due to injuries. Funnily enough, three of them are teams that made it to the LCS last year, which...yeah, kinda tracks, if they're pushing that hard last season for even longer that they're needing longer to recover this year.
The Padres, for instance, have a vastly different rotation than they were working with last year. Not just because Mike Clevinger left for Chicago and Sean Manaea left for SF, but as of right now they are without Joe Musgrove and Adrian Morejon. Yu Darvish's first start of the year was delayed, so they had to open the season with Blake Snell, and eventually their rotation rolled out to consist of Nick Martinez, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Ryan Weathers.
Bunch of concerned Padres fans rustling for the receipt going 'I didn't order that!'
When a good 5/6ths of your rotation feels like it could be the fifth-man in a stronger version of this rotation, you know things aren't how you planned them. Not that anyone's pitching too terribly at the moment, and some, like Lugo and Weathers, are performing better than anticipated, but...I look at A.J. Preller and his standard for mega-rotations, and because they had to pay 300 million dollars to a shortstop this year, this is what we've got. It's...not terrible, but these aren't first choices, other than Darvish.
And then, at the same time, Snell is not pitching as well as he did in Tampa, has a 7.88 ERA and, despite lots of strikeouts on Opening Day, is struggling against offenses that have figured him out. So he might not be a surefire, meaning that it's down to Darvish to be a reliable returning arm while the others do their best. And I'm not exactly acting like Nick Martinez was in the rotation for most of the year last year, because he was, but he was also dropped after Clevinger came back. He's still good, but he's not a big-game guy, at least not at this point.
This could still end up working well for the Padres, I'm just puzzled that a once-starry rotation has been forced to seem this low-budget.
At the same time, the Padres have been starting people like David Dahl and Jose Azocar in the outfield as they wait for Fernando Tatis return from his suspension. Apparently he's been doing well in the minors, much to the dismay of Kade McClure [who has a point, not gonna lie], but the goal is to get him back at the end of the month and try their best to do an 'all is forgiven' season, a lot like Starling Marte's return. Once Tatis returns, hopefully they won't need many replacement players in the lineup, and hopefully they have the health and momentum to keep it that way.
If the Padres can reap the benefits of how packed their lineup is, where even Ha-Seong Kim can be relied upon for a walk-off home run every once in a while, then they'll be alright. And hopefully that'll distract from their lighter rotation.
Coming Tonight: I bet the Red Sox didn't think they were getting much when they signed this guy..
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