Padres Daily: Snell the same, just better; Profar keeps going; Frazier’s long way back

Good morning from Phoenix,

The words are similar.

But a different Blake Snell continues to get different results.

“I need to be better,” he said last night. “I need to be more efficient.”

He spoke after not allowing a hit, walking two and striking out 10 over seven innings in the Padres’ 3-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. (Game story here. It includes Snell and manager Jayce Tingler talking about the decision to remove the left-hander after he had thrown 107 pitches.)

Of that total number of pitches, Snell threw 37 in the first two innings, when he went to three-ball counts four times, with three of the at-bats lasting seven pitches and one of them eight.

“I need to focus on not having a long first inning, not walking (Christian) Walker when I’m ahead 0-2 (in the fourth inning),” Snell said. “That could have gotten me out for the eighth with the possibility to go nine and try to compete for a no-hitter.”

How far has the left-hander come?

Before, when he said something similar, following about 10 different starts in April and May and June and July, he was lamenting having wasted too many pitches to get past the fifth inning. On Tuesday, he made it through seven in a second consecutive start and for the third time in five starts. It is the first time he had accomplished that since 2018, the year he won the American League Cy Young award while with the Tampa Bay Rays.

(baseball-reference)

So, after another gem on the last day of August, just less than eight months after the Padres acquired Snell in a trade with the Rays, he is the pitcher we and he expected all along.

“I think he’s getting his groove back, he’s feeling comfortable on the mound, he’s feeling really good with his pitches,” Manny Machado said. “… We’re finally seeing the Snell that we got.”

Snell knew he was this guy. He did win that Cy Young. He did have the sixth-lowest ERA in the majors from 2018-20 (minimum 300 innings).

Along the way this year, Snell learned a little something about process. He said he came here intent on being everything that was expected and more.

“I was trying be he superstar, which I know I am, but I was trying way too hard,” he told me earlier this summer.

That led to overthrowing, which led to missing the strike zone too often and by too much.

He found out he just needed to be himself. Maybe a refined version of himself.

“I finally got comfortable and in my zone,” he said last night. “Now I can go. But it takes time. I can’t just be dominant every start and never fail. Then what do I have to learn and how am I going to go? I’m going to get better, regardless. Just let me be me, and we’ll be fine.”

Would the Padres be fighting for their playoff lives if Snell had figured it out sooner? Probably not.

But here they are. And here he is.

“You look at the last four or five outings, and that’s kind of the version that that we (thought),” Tingler said. “I think now he’s throwing the ball the way he’s capable of, and what you’re seeing are borderline dominant performances.”

And not just from him.

I’ll update yesterday’s note about the Padres’ top four starters:

In the past seven games started by Snell, Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove and Chris Paddack, the Padres are 4-3. (That’s all but one of the Padres’ five victories since Aug. 11.) In those seven starts, the four pitchers have combined for a 1.99 ERA and 0.57 WHIP while striking out 59 in 45 1/3 innings.

There is a word players and managers use far too much in baseball. There really is no such thing as this word in this game. If there such a thing as momentum, the saying goes, it is only as good as the next day’s pitcher.

Well, the Padres do seem to be on a roll there.

“From Musgrove (Friday) and Paddack (Monday) and Darvish (today), this is the type of momentum we need to build going into these last four or five weeks,” Tingler said. “We’re right back in this thing, and we’ll keep it moving (today) with Darvish.”

Darvish, who allowed four runs in six innings Thursday against the Dodgers in his first game off the injured list, starts today’s 12:40 p.m. game. Musgrove starts Friday’s series opener against the Astros at home.

Profar, so far

Jurickson Profar is batting .355 with a 1.021 OPS since June 27.

He has just 90 plate appearances in those two months. But if he keeps playing as he has been, he may well have 90 more in the season’s final month.

“He’s definitely been a spark,” Tingler said. “Really good at-bats, some good defensive plays and just making things happen. That’s what we’ve got to have right now.”

Profar started in left field and drove in the Padres’ third run with a sixth-inning single. He finished 2-for-4 after going 2-for-2 on Monday night. In that game, he entered as a left fielder in the fifth inning and played first base in the ninth. He has in the past three games played 12 1/3 innings in left field, seven innings at second base, an inning in right field and an inning at first base.

Beyond being the Padres’ most versatile player and one of their toughest outs, players and coaches talk about his constant good cheer and energy. They did so especially when he was gone, on the COVID IL, from Aug. 6 through the 19^th.

“We were down a little bit all of August, and then finally he got back, and he gave us that spark we needed,” Machado said. “… It’s some that we need, for sure. Every time he’s out there, he’s gonna give 110 percent. He’s gonna give his best. And he’s on a streak right now, so we’ve got to keep him going.”

Long turn

Adam Frazier was 0-for-2 but walked twice, scored from first base on Profar’s single and did not strike out last night. On Monday, he was 1-for-4 with a strikeout in his first start since Wednesday.

Tingler had sat the struggling second baseman while he worked on some timing issues in his swing mechanics and tried to relax. Frazier has acknowledged pressing since being acquired in a July 25 trade. Frazier was the National League’s leading hitter with a .324 average at the time of the trade is now hitting .303 for the season. He is batting .223 (23-for-103) with 16 strikeouts with the Padres. Of those whiffs, 14 had come in 58 plate appearances leading up to Monday. (He struck out once every seven plate appearances with the Pirates this season.)

One thing that has stood out the past two games is the number of pitches Frazier has seen. His single came on the eighth pitch of an at-bat Monday. He had a six-pitch walk last night and made outs at the end of a pair of seven-pitch at-bats.

Before Monday, Frazier had gone 88 plate appearances without seeing more than six pitches. And he had only seen six pitches three times in that span.

“It looks like he’s seeing the ball a little bit longer, a little bit better,” Tingler said. “The decisions are good, he’s staying in the zone, the moves are tight. So, really like what I’m seeing right now.”

Tidbits

• Eric Hosmer hit his 20^th double of the season last night. He is one of four players to have hit at least 20 doubles every full season since 2011.

• Jake Cronenworth slapped a two-out single the other way against the shift in the fifth inning just before Machado hit a home run to give the Padres a 2-0 lead. It was Cronenworth’s second hit in 26 at-bats. He also singled in the ninth inning and was 2-for-5, his team-leading 36^th multi-hit game.

• Machado’s homer broke a drought of 38 at-bats, his fourth-longest stretch without a homer this season. He finished August with three homers after hitting eight in July and six in June. He also hit three in April and three in May.

• Tommy Pham struck out as a pinch-hitter. It was his seventh straight game with at least one strikeout.

• Mark Melancon allowed a pair of two-out singles before converting his major league-leading 36^th save. Since blowing a save on Aug. 4, he has not allowed a run in seven appearances (8 1/3 innings) while allowing six hits and three walks and striking out 12.
  

The Juniors

This is the kind of “the last to” or “only other” you like to see.

So often when a Padres player has accomplished something, he is the first do it since Clayton Richard or Corey Spangenberg. Fine men, both of them. What you want in your ballplayers, though, is for them to be accomplishing things generally only achieved by All-Stars and Hall of Famers.

Yesterday was Tatis’ 101st game of the season.

All right, that’s it for me. Day game today.

Talk to you tomorrow.