Tom Krasovic: Even with Joe Musgrove out, Padres still had enough pitching to mount a World Series bid

Tom Krasovic, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Oct 12, 2024

Published in Baseball

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What made Friday night’s season-ending loss extra painful to the San Diego Padres and their fans was that the pitching hadn’t run out of high-octane fuel.

Pitching can crumble fast in a journey that’s pushing 170 games, but the Padres seemed to have enough arm health to rate a coin-flip chance of upending a good Mets team and reach the franchise’s first World Series since 1998.

Yu Darvish had rounded into peak form, and hadn’t worked many innings. Michael King looked OK, despite having soared well past his career innings workload.

Yes, Dylan Cease’s two poor showings in the National League Division Series raised a yellow flag, and with Joe Musgrove headed to surgery, an additional starter would’ve been needed.

But veteran Martín Pérez, obtained July 30, loomed as a decent candidate and a much better option than Mike Clevinger in the 2022 postseason. As the rotation’s only left-hander, Pérez pitched to a 2.61 ERA in eight starts before struggling in the meaningless 162nd game. His innings total was low, a good thing.

Fatigue no doubt would’ve challenged a Padres bullpen in which multiple relievers had eclipsed career-high innings totals for a season.

Among the potential lower-tier replacements were swingman Randy Vásquez and Sean Reynolds, a 6-foot-8 riser who struck out 21 batters in 11 big-league innings this year.

On balance, the bullpen, bolstered by three summer additions via trades, looked capable of cobbling together an NLCS game by itself and succeeding in other games.

The back end boasted a pair of co-closers, giving manager Mike Shildt a rare chess tandem, and both were still bringing extraordinary stuff.

Lefty Tanner Scott, described by the Dodgers as filthy, had struck out Shohei Ohtani four times in four chances in the Division Series. Robert Suarez had pulled out of his late-season struggles. Rested after having logged a career-high total of innings, he allowed no runs or walks in 3 1/3 postseason innings.

None of that matters now.

Never scoring, the Padres lost both games that could’ve closed out the Dodgers, who got 13 scoreless innings from relievers across Games 4 and 5.

Half full?

Looking for a reason for optimism about the Padres’ coming attempts to win a first World Series trophy?

Fernando Tatis Jr., 25, and Jackson Merrill, 21, are under team control for many years.

Merrill will need to show he can stay healthy and adapt to opponents vowing to make other Padres hitters beat them.

But the mature Merrill was so impressive that it appears the Padres have a right-left, build-around offensive tandem, complemented by veteran right-handers Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts, who’ll each turn 33 next year.

It’s a never-ending quest to stockpile enough pitching to navigate some 180 games – including up to 22 in the World Series tournament. Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has demonstrated an ability to acquire veteran starting pitchers who return good (even great) value to the Padres. Examples include the lopsided trades for Musgrove, Blake Snell and Darvish, the bargain signings of Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo and the recent promising acquisitions of King and Cease. Related: Preller’s farm system always seems to have enough prospects that he can trade for big-league relievers.

Preller and his scouts have also thrived in the amateur player markets lately.

Merrill was a high school draftee taken in a high round, as was James Wood, who was critical to the Juan Soto trade that benefited both the Padres and Yankees. Less than a year after Preller’s staff signed him at age 17, Dominican shortstop Leodalis De Vries stands among the 20 best prospects in the sport, according to various media outlets.

Baseball’s expanded World Series tournament provides the current Padres an advantage that their predecessors would’ve welcomed. Two wild cards have been added to each league’s playoffs since John Moores agreed to sell the team 12 years ago, meaning that the Padres need to finish only sixth among 15 NL teams to advance to the tournament.

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