There’s good news for the Padres Thursday in Chicago, just in time for the series finale against the Cubs: it might keep raining and wash the game away. (Update: no rain, no good news, the Padres got smashed 11-3 to cap an 0-6 road trip.)
If they do play, the Padres will plug away and earnestly attempt to avoid their 11th straight road loss. A win would at least give the San Diego nine a happy chartered flight home, but little else. The Padres have lost 19 of 23 and are swinging through mud, with one notable exception. Adrian Gonzalez is back to pounding the ball, but he can’t do it alone. It’s the rest of a supposedly improved lineup that has to be keeping Kevin Towers and Bud Black up at night. They’re putting the rest of us to sleep.
Just the facts: In May, the Padres are hitting .209 as a team, with a .283 on-base percentage and a .342 slugging percentage. That adds up to a .625 OPS for the team. Basically, they’ve been hitting like one big Rey Ordonez. Nobody has an average for the month over .300. Kevin Kouzmanoff is batting .154 with 0 HR and 0 RBI. David Eckstein and Brian Giles, .171 apiece. Chase Headley is at .226 for the month, and .254 for the season.
Baseball exposes you for what you are. Every weakness is revealed over time, and then exploited. The Padres have so many it’s not even fair. You just don’t have quality major league talent at most positions. Other teams have athleticism where the Padres have pluggers. The defense is average at best, with no real plus defenders on the field at any position. And notice, we’re this deep into a critique of the team, and not a word yet about the pitching staff. That tells you how far this team is away from being good.
Used to be, the Padres could smooth over some of their wrinkles thanks to dominant starts and a back-end bullpen that was lights out. But the team just concluded another turn through Peavy and CY without picking up a win. The 3-4-5 in the rotation is arguably the worst in the majors: non-prospects Gaudin, Correia and Geer are just taking up space while going 0-5. The team is waiting for Cha Seung Beck’s return, which is all you need to know. Beyond Bell there is no one of consequence in the bullpen.
If I’m in the front office of the Padres, I’ve known most of this from spring training forward. The pitching staff is a cobbled mess and there are placeholders at half the positions on the field. My question is about the supposed prospects of the team on offense. This is supposed to be the breakout year for Kevin Kouzmanoff. He’s three full years into starting in the big leagues, and he’s 27. If this is the peak, I must be in Death Valley.
Should the Padres remain patient with Kouzmanoff, or jettison him into the horizon? If they move him or let him go, it would allow Headley to slide into third base, and open up left field for Kyle Blanks. At least it would get Blanks’ bat to the big leagues, although watching the kid rumble around the left fields in the NL West might leave Padre fans hankering for the days of Ryan Klesko. But the Padres need prospects. There are too many suspects out there right now.
Headley is the other question. He’s earlier in the process, but some of the things we heard about him all the way through the minors aren’t happening right now. Headley’s on-base percentage is just .313. He’s striking out over three times as much as he walks, and his power isn’t enough to compensate, given his lack of speed.
If you believe in the kid, the batspeed, and his ability to improve, then fine, roll with him. Same with Nick Hundley, who is defensively a big question mark. Let them play, that’s part of what you are punting 2009 for. But Padres fans have a right to wonder if this long road they are being asked to pay to watch, a supposed road to improvement, is really a road to nowhere.
With the fading vets and quad-A players who populate this roster, the only reason for fans to stay invested in any way is to track the progress of the Padres’ prospects. But if this franchise is investing in mediocrity, and putting three to four years into the development of players who turn out to be below-average regulars, then they aren’t doing anyone any good.
- Elsten
