Padres Daily: Talking Tingler, hit batters, pinch-hitters and lack of hits

Good morning from St. Louis,

Padres manager Jayce Tingler tried to play it off before last night’s game like maybe his best back-end relievers could go last night.

A few of those pitchers told him they were available after throwing Thursday and carrying a heavy load of late.

They weren’t. Everyone knew it. And if they didn’t know before the game, they found out when Austin Adams jogged in from the bullpen in the eighth inning of a game the Padres trailed 4-2.

The right-hander has been and may one day again be a highly effective reliever. Right now, he’s a powder keg.

But he was in that moment the Padres’ most desirable option (if they had to make a change).

And that says all there is to know about the Padres’ chances to win last night if they weren’t going to hit as they had the previous two days while winning in San Francisco.

They did not hit very much, and the Cardinals got enough timely and big hits to take the opener of what could very well be a decisive series for the Padres. (Game story here.)

I wrote in yesterday’s newsletter that the bullpen could have as many as six relievers down after their heavy workload the previous two days. And it turns out that was the case. Daniel Hudson, Tim Hill, Pierce Johnson, Mark Melancon and Emilio Pagán were spent. That was the cost of victories Wednesday and Thursday in San Francisco.

So with an eye toward saving Craig Stammen for a possible tie game or to protect a lead in the ninth, Tingler brought in Adams at the start of the eighth. The mercurial Adams has allowed at least one run in four of his previous six outings (a total of seven runs on five hits, three walks and six hit batters).

Four right-handed batters due up and Adams’ previous success against Paul Goldschmidt (1-for-6) was Tingler’s justification for removing lefty Ryan Weathers, who had thrown a perfect seventh.

Goldschmidt doubled, Tyler O’Neill struck out and Nolan Arenado walked before Adams got up 0-2 on Yadier Molina, threw a ball and then hit him in the arm to load the bases.

Tingler was forced to remove Adams and replace him with Ross Detwiler, a lefty who the Padres signed Tuesday after the Marlins released him. Detwiler’s third pitch to Dylan Carlson was hit over the wall in center field for a grand slam.

There can certainly be questions and opinions about how that was handled.

Maybe Tingler should have left in Weathers, who had taken 10 pitches to get through the seventh. That’s fair. But so is pointing out Weathers, who has fairly even splits, has surrendered 32 runs and a .402 batting average over his past 23 innings.

The hit man

Maybe Tingler should have stayed away from Adams at all costs. His slider has become far more Hyde than Jeckyll as he tears through the record books. Molina was Adams’ 24^th hit batsman, most by a pitcher in a season since Eddie Plank hit that many while throwing 346 2/3 innings for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1905. Adams has worked 49 2/3 innings this season.

Where he was almost untouchable for a large portion of the season, to the point where his ability to get strikeouts with the slider got him out of almost any jam, he simply seems unable to harness the pitch now.

Tingler has repeatedly express faith in Adams. But last night, he acknowledged a time is nigh that Adams cannot be used in crucial situations.

“Of course there comes a point this time of year,” Tingler said. “Of course there comes a point to that.”

No pinch-hitter

Tingler can also be questioned for not going to Wil Myers as a pinch-hitter for Eric Hosmer, who bats from the left side, in the eighth inning when Cardinals brought in lefty Genesis Cabrera with two outs and a runner on first base. Myers had a pinch-hit RBI in the previous two games.

Tingler’s explanation was that he was saving Myers for a potential big at-bat in the pitcher’s spot in the ninth. He anticipated that could be in a game the Padres led or was tied against Cardinals closer Giovanny Gallegos. Tingler obviously had no way of knowing the game would be out of hand by then and Myers would make the last out in an 8-2 loss.

Had he wanted to save Myers, which is plausible, he also could have used Jake Marisnick against Cabrera (and then moved Jake Cronenworth to first base, Fernando Tatis Jr. back to shortstop and put Marisnick in right field). Marisnick is 1-for-3 against Cabrera this season.

A part of Tingler’s rationale for keeping Hosmer in was that he had doubled against lefty T.J. McFarland in the seventh inning. While Hosmer has sat against lefties much of the season, he is hitting .263 in 133 at-bats against them, which is just seven points lower than his average against righties (in 204 more at-bats).

Not enough hits

All that said, you can be fairly confident Tingler did not instruct his batters to get three hits in the first six innings while they fell behind 4-0. He also did not tell them to ground into 13 outs, including 10 to the pull side.

In fact, if you have been paying attention you know that has been a point of emphasis for the Padres that they just can’t get past.

The Padres once again watched their opponent club multiple home runs while not getting any themselves. That has happened in four of the eight games on this trip.

As we have discussed several times, the Padres are not slugging as expected. That is largely the product of a 46 percent groundball rate that is fifth highest in the majors.

While getting 30 hits and scoring 16 runs their final two games in San Francisco, the Padres made just seven groundouts on the pull side and 17 groundouts in all.

In those two victories against the Giants, the Padres were 17-for-37 (.459) on pitches clearly in the strike zone. Last night, they were 5-for-19 (.263).

In the two victories, they also had 12 plate appearances (15 percent of their total plate appearances) last seven pitches or more. They had two (six percent) last night. The Padres watched a lot more pitches for called strikes last night (19 of 51 pitches clearly in the zone) than they did the previous two games (19 of 88). And they fouled off more pitches in the zone the previous two games (32 of 88) than they did last night (10 of 51).

“We definitely have got to get back to the longer at-bats and hitting the ball the other way,” Tingler said. “No doubt about it, the common theme for the two prior games was doing a better job to avoid those, understanding pull side on the ground is death. But just the longer at-bats, that’s what we’ve got to get back to tomorrow and grind out the at-bats.”

OK, that’s enough for today.

Talk to you tomorrow.