Another grinder, and at home against a subpar team, no less. That's okay. This is the Major Leagues. These are all professional ballplayers, which should be incentive enough for each player to approach each game the same way.
Manaea was shaky, but gave us the gutsy outing we needed. Seven innings pitched, and our bullpen is still well rested after the off day. There were some really good defensive stops...Manny Machado comes to mind here. I may be biased here, but I still don't think there's a better third baseman in the game than Manny. Arenado gets all the ink, but I feel he hits the deck more often than he needs to, whereas Manny is more likely to simply pick the ball, meaning he's read it well before the ball reaches him. Look at Manny day in and day out, and how he goes about his business. Defense, fundamentals, hit the ball the other way...the man knows how to play, period, has a high baseball IQ. I can almost forgive him for getting picked off second base in the fourth inning.
It was good to see Luke Voit finally contribute. Three run homer, tie game. He came up again in the eighth inning with two men on and two out and popped out, though. Again, that's a wasted out, especially in a close game. Think Luke Voit is going to bunt? Not in the year 2022, not with so much money being made. Today, it's dingers and RBI's that count, as all of the players’ agents will proudly confirm. The only person who still appreciates the bunt these days is the manager.
Luckily, we didn't need that extra run, as Taylor Rogers slammed the door shut for his league leading seventeenth save. One thing the Padres have never lacked over the years is a good closer. In fact, I can't remember us ever having issues in the ninth inning. Going back, I remember Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Craig Lefferts, Mark Davis, Trevor Hoffmann, Heath Bell, Brad Hand, Craig Kimbrel, Mark Melancon, etc. If we go back to the year 1969, when the Padres were born, we probably have one of the highest save conversion rates in the league.
One thing we have lacked over the years is a steady diet of starting pitching. I remember Randy Jones in the 1970s. Gaylord Perry won the Cy Young Award for us one year. But after that? There was Jake Peavy, who was lights out in the regular season, but would crumble in the postseason. I never can recall a horse who would regularly put up numbers like a Verlander, Kershaw, or Scherzer. That's one thing the Padres have lacked over the years. A true franchise ace who can put up 15-20 wins and 200 innings a year. No idea why we never had it. Perhaps we were scouting only closers. We've played in some pitcher friendly parks, so you would think that we could land an ace or develop one in the minors. If you looked at our pennant winning teams, our ace in 1984 was Eric Show, who was nowhere to be seen in the postseason. In 1998, it was Kevin Brown, who made the most of the one season he pitched with us. Other than that, it's the other clubs with all of the pitching. Kluber, Keuchel, DeGrom, Wainwright, Cole...where is our stud? We definitely have a good staff. Who is our ace? We have a couple of candidates with Musgrove and Gore, but I'm still waiting for that one workhorse-ace pitcher to give us that particular edge every fifth day.
With the way the Dodgers are playing now, you almost have to plan to beat them over seven games, not 162. The trouble is, we need to make it to that seven game series first. Teams like the Dodgers don't rebuild, they reload. I just look at that lineup, see Bellinger batting seventh and Chris Taylor in the eighth spot and think: Whoa, I'm outta here. If you have Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Trea Turner leading off for you, then you know it's going to be a long day.
Got Musgrove going in Game 2. Let's rack up the wins, every one counts.
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