Good morning,
Another win chased — for a while, at least. Some more missed opportunities on offense.
The Padres’ season has settled into redundancy.
At least they are good enough that it can be said they gave away a series to the Dodgers.
They at least gave away a chance to win the series while the Dodgers did what they usually do and took the gifts the Padres offered.
The Padres failed to score as much as they should have in an early inning yesterday. A Padres pitcher mishandled a ball that led to an extra opportunity. The Padres failed to score at all in a late inning.
You can read about all that in my game story (here) from the Dodgers’ 5-2 victory.
The game story also looks at how Mike Shildt was going to try to navigate the back end of the game with his bullpen and had it all lined up nicely for about 10 minutes.
And Jeff Sanders wrote a story (here) from the Dodgers’ perspective about how their giving up on Tuesday’s game saved their bullpen for yesterday.
And much like in Game 5 of last year’s National League Division Series, that worked out well for the Dodgers.
Yesterday’s victory kept the Dodgers in first place, the Padres in third and the Giants in second in the National League West.
Now we can go back to ing it is June.
At least until Monday, when the Padres begin a four-game series at Dodger Stadium and we get hyped up again.
“It’s fun playing these guys,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think they know they’re talented. We know we’re talented. … It’s a big series, but it’s not the end-all be-all certainly in June. But it was fun.”
Tom Krasovic wrote an interesting column (here) that touched on myriad topics from the series, including the large number of Dodgers fans at Petco Park.
Tidbits
- Yu Darvish traveled with the team to Phoenix and is scheduled to face batters this weekend, likely at the team’s complex in Peoria, Ariz.
- Manny Machado was 0-for-4, which ended his hitting streak at eight games. Machado hit .471 (16-for-34) during the streak.
- Jake Cronenworth was 1-for-4 and has reached base safely in 10 straight games. He is batting .229 (8-for-35) with a .341 on-base percentage during the streak.
- Tyler Wade pinch-hit for Jose Iglesias in yesterday’s seventh inning and then replaced him at shortstop. Wade has now played at every position except first base and catcher this season. That includes his one inning on the mound in Toronto on May 21.
All right, that’s it for me.
This is the shortest newsletter in six seasons of there being a newsletter. But what else can we say about Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Arraez going hitless and the Padres not driving in runs when they had the opportunity?
Essentially, I am punting and planning on coming back strong for the next newsletter. (It worked for Dave Roberts.)
I will have a story, posted on our Padres page later today, about the most alarming issue facing the team.
The next Padres Daily will be in your inbox Saturday.
