Michael King’s bad night’s sleep in an Atlanta suburb last weekend has raised the first bright yellow flag on this Padres season.
Until King woke up with a knot on the back on his shoulder, nixing his start that night and sending him to the injured list, the Padres had enjoyed enviable pitching health on the year.
I’ll cite Bruce Bochy on this topic once again, if only because the man owns four World Series rings and directed the 1998 Padres to both the best season in franchise history and their second World Series appearance.
It’s the injuries to frontline pitchers the team is counting on to shoulder a heavy load, Bochy said during his Padres tenure, that tend to cause the greatest concern.
In that realm, the Padres have fared very well, not just this year but since 2021. If they were expecting an above-average starter or reliever to put up a lot of innings, he did.
King is one of those pitchers.
Last year he posted 30 starts, 177 innings and a 3.33 ERA in his first big-league season as a full-time starter.
This year, he has looked even sharper — 10 starts, a 2.59 ERA and an adjusted ERA that’s 54 points better than league average.
The Padres said King had no physical issues before going to bed Friday night.
All teams fib at times in health reports, but in this case I believe the Padres. They weren’t able to immediately line up a starting pitcher with King down, a sign the setback caught them by surprise. Plus, King’s pitch quality was consistently good through the 10 starts.
The subsequent tests on King, manager Mike Shildt said Wednesday, were “very favorable” and “very excellent.”
That’s encouraging. But when a shoulder injury sends a pitcher to the injured list for reasons that aren’t solely to get the pitcher rest, a yellow flag stays up until the pitcher shows he’s back to full form.
King, who turned 30 on Sunday, can become a free agent in November. There’s plenty at stake, financial and otherwise, for one of the Padres’ top starters.
Trusting in Bochy, I rate King’s injury as more concerning to the Padres’ wild-card bid than Jackson Merrill’s hamstring injury that cost the star center fielder 24 games.
Already, the fallout from King’s sleep mishap has led to a pair of defeats in addition to bullpen-straining workloads.
In the first game without him, the Padres lost 7-1 and had to get eight innings from their relievers.
Wednesday dealt them another high-scoring defeat. This one, at home against the Marlins, stung more.
The starting pitcher who was called up after King went on the injured list, Kyle Hart, took a 6-1 lead into the fifth inning. He then allowed four hits, leading to a five-run surge. A bullpen that’s been overworked lately, in part because of a dense schedule, was unable to parlay Gavin Sheets’ go-ahead, two-run home run into the victory. The Marlins won 10-8.
Small yellow flag
The last-place Marlins hit the ball very hard throughout the three-game series.
Based on exit velocity, they had more well-struck balls than the Padres in each game. The Marlins banged out 12, 18 and 16 such blows despite ranking 17th out of 30 teams in hard-hit percentage. Prior to this series, Padres pitchers had allowed an average of 9.6 hard drives per game.
Marlins hitters looked more comfortable than any other visiting team I can recall this season. The King fallout was part of it. The Padres pushed back No. 3 starter Nick Pivetta, perhaps to line him up against playoff contenders next month. So the Marlins faced a trio of No. 5 starters in Randy Vasquez, Stephen Kolek and Hart.
Also, the youthful Marlins’ approach of “see ball, hit ball” had consistent success.
“Very aggressive,” said Padres catcher Elías Díaz. “We went with the game plan. We executed a lot of pitches, and they got hit. Baseball is like that. We will stay positive. The pitching staff is great. We won the series, we’re moving forward.”
The Padres deserved Wednesday’s loss, that’s for sure.
Fernando Tatis Jr. erred by getting thrown out at home after running through a stop sign. (Fortunately, the catcher’s hard tag to the ribs didn’t appear to bother Tatis, who unleashed fierce swings in his next at-bat).
Manny Machado flubbed an attempt to grab the ball out of his glove, a crucial fielding error.
Errant with all five pitches, Wandy Peralta issued a killer walk to a raw No. 9 hitter who’d gifted him with strike one.
Hart, who said the defeat fell on him, allowed Jesús Sanchez’s first homer against a lefty this year. Hart’s replacement, David Morgan, got away with a hanging slider on his first pitch only to misplace his next pitch, a fastball that was hit for a game-tying three-run home run.
On pace
The Padres’ big picture remains mostly sunny, in part because of the eight home runs from Sheets this month.
Though the season’s first third, the Padres are 31-23 and on pace to match last year’s 93-win total. If the season ended Wednesday night, they’d head to the playoffs with the second of three wild-card spots.
The disclaimer is King’s status.
If King returns in June and regains peak form before the All-Star break, you’ll feel the exhales from 19 Tony Gwynn Dr.
