Padres Daily: This trip drives home the lack of homers

Good morning from San Francisco,

Yes, I came anyway.

Union-Tribune columnist Bryce Miller declared yesterday (here) that the season is finished. But I’m a trooper. God willing, I will see this through to the end.

You might agree with Bryce if you have been watching lately. And yesterday, well, I wrote in my game story (here) that the 8-0 loss to the Dodgers was cruelty rubbed in embarrassment.

That assessment mostly had to do with what Max Scherzer did in the game and what he did on July 29 in agreeing to a trade to the Dodgers. (Yes, as a veteran with at least 10 years in the major leagues who had spent at least five years with the same team, Scherzer had veto power over any trade.)

Yesterday’s game story also included details about Blake Snell, the Padres’ starting pitcher who was riding a six-week hot streak, departing in the first inning with a groin injury and the bullpen leaking runs again.

These are troubling issues.

But for whatever pitching problems have popped up, this weekend further illustrated that the Padres’ biggest challenge has become their inability to score — and their inability to decide how to score.

Are they an offense that routinely strings together hits to create runs? Or are they an offense that drives in the bulk of its runs with home runs? Because they are evidently not good enough to do both. Lately, they are not good enough to do either.

The Padres were shut out twice in three games at Dodger Stadium. They have scored fewer runs per game than any team in the majors over the past month and have gone 8-19 in that time.

Today they begin a four-game series against the San Francisco Giants, whose 93-50 record is best in the major leagues.

The first seven games of this 10-day trip are an in-their-face reminder of why the Padres are way behind the Giants and Dodgers and are struggling to keep hold of a playoff spot.

Certainly, the three games in L.A. provided a vivid illustration.

The Dodgers won 3-0 on Friday with the first two runs coming on a Max Muncy homer. The difference in their 5-4 victory on Saturday was Mookie Betts’ three-run homer. Five of their first six runs in yesterday’s game were the product of three home runs.

The Padres got slugged and didn’t slug back.

Fernando Tatis Jr.’s two-run homer tied Saturday’s game briefly but was the only Padres home run in the past five games.

Their 1.14 home runs per game rank 21^st in the majors this season.

You want to know the difference between the team that had the major leagues’ third-best record in 2020 and this year’s club, which has fallen to six games over .500? Last year’s team averaged 1.58 home runs a game.

It was shown a while ago that we should base nothing on 2020, as its brevity allowed for much flukiness. Nonetheless, four-tenths of a homer per game made the Padres more formidable over 60 games.

How about this? The Padres hit more homers per game in 2019 (1.35) than they are hitting this season, and they are scoring more than three-quarters of a run less this season than in ‘19. Their .323 on-base percentage this season is 15 points higher than in ’19, and it doesn’t matter because they’re leaving those runners there.

The overall offensive numbers of the Dodgers and Giants are not that much better than the Padres — except home runs and the runs derived from home runs.

(Statistics from MLB.com)

“We’re probably not slugging as a group enough,” manager Jayce Tingler said yesterday. “And if we’re not going to do that, we’ve got to be just a little bit more skilled with the bat. We’ve got to find a way to get some hits with runners in scoring position, create more scoring opportunities.”

The Padres’ lack of timely hitting has been lamented quite a bit. However, the real problem is the type of timely hits.

The Padres rank 12^th in the majors with a .257 batting average with runners in scoring position. That is one spot behind the Dodgers (.259) and four spots in front of the Giants (.253). But the Giants have 33 home runs with two or three runners on base. The Dodgers have 28. The Padres have 19.

With runners on base at all, the Padres rank 17^th (.251), which is one spot behind the Giants (.252) and three spots behind the Dodgers (.253). But the Giants have 104 home runs with at least one runner on base. The Dodgers have 82. The Padres have 75.

One significant reason for the Padres’ lack of home runs is that they hit the ball on the ground 45.9 percent of the time, more than all but four teams. No one has been able to give me an answer on why that is. But I bet I don’t have to tell you which two teams hit the ball on the ground less than anyone else.

Yes, the Giants at 40.3 percent and the Dodgers at 40.4 percent. For context, that means the Giants have hit 207 fewer ground balls and the Dodgers 173 fewer ground balls than the Padres.

As Wil Myers said yesterday of ground balls: “Those do not equate to home runs.”

Thin pickings

Austin Adams was left on the mound to finish yesterday’s eighth inning despite his difficulty throwing strikes and keeping runners off base.

He entered a 6-0 game, hit three batters, walked one and allowed a double, and left having thrown a season-high 31 pitches with the Padres trailing 8-0.

“Being down six at the time, and we want to make sure for tomorrow that we’re lined up,” Tingler explained of his letting Adams wear the inning. “Obviously, Snell comes out in the first and we had to use a big group of bullpen arms. So, (usually) on those days where Austin’s not commanding it in the games that are a little bit tighter, we’ll have more guys behind them, but I wanted to line up for San Francisco to make sure that … we’re going to have some of those guys fresh.”

Tingler said he will continue to go with Adams despite his frequent troubles commanding his slider, because the right-hander also has plenty of outings in which he is highly effective.

“(When) it’s in the zone, guys don’t hit him,” Tingler said of Adams’ slider. “They don’t hit him.”

I wrote about the hot and cold of Adams yesterday (here).

There is also the fact the Padres don’t have a lot of dependable option out of the bullpen right now. This is a very different group than it was for the season’s first 4½ months.

Padres relievers comprised the major leagues’ top bullpen through the first 120 games they were used with a 2.96 ERA in 502 innings. In 20 games (90 2/3 innings) since then, their collective ERA of 5.26 is third highest in the majors.

* Hudson’s games before Aug. 11 were with the Washington Nationals. “G/Sc” is Games/Games scored on

(Statistics from baseball-reference)

Tidbits

• Eric Hosmer’s double yesterday was his 24^th this season. He is one of four players with at least 22 doubles in each of the past 10 full (162-game) seasons.

• Manny Machado’s on-base streak was ended at 15 games, one game shy of matching his season-high.

• Ryan Weathers pitched for the first time since Sept. 1 and worked a perfect sixth inning before being charged with a run in the seventh when he allowed a single before being replaced by Emilio Pagán, who then allowed that runner to score.

• Nabil Crismatt pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings in place of Snell. He was replaced after going once through the order, and all five relievers who followed him allowed at least one run.

All right, that’s it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.