Ranking the San Diego Padres playoff pitching is an intriguing exercise in tradeoffs. Yeah, that bullpen is pretty amazing, but there’s a lot to sort out with the starters.
The Athletic recently took a shot at this, with Stephen J. Nesbitt and Chad Jennings ranking the postseason pitching core of every playoff contender. The Padres came out fifth, finishing behind four prospective division winners, assuming the Seattle Mariners are able to hold serve and keep the Houston Astros in the wild card category.
They also compiled a nice list of bullpen attributes, stats-wise. With a season ERA of just over 3.00, the Padres have a clear lead over the Boston Red Sox, who currently have the second-best pen. Going into this week’s action, the San Diego pen led the majors in batting average against (.226), batting average on ball in play (.269) and slugging percentage (.367).
Then there are the starters. They’re not necessarily bad, of course, but they don’t stand out in a way that makes for an easy rotation setup, especially compared to some of the better teams on the list. Right-hander Nick Pivetta has had a career year, but is he really a number one in a playoff setting?
There are other questions that Nesbitt and Jennings nailed. Is right-hander Michael King reliable enough to trust with a start? Can strikeout leader Dylan Cease throw strikes? Should an older starter like Yu Darvish even be considered given his age and the fact that he was basically a back-of-the-rotation option?
Another interesting question revolves around when the bullpen will come into play. The sixth inning is usually considered the line of demarcation during the season, especially with a team like San Diego that had to consider the wear-and-tear issue when setup man Jason Adam went down with a ruptured quad.
Does that change this time around in the postseason? It sure feels like it should. Playoff baseball is about winning tight games, so expect manager Mike Shildt to sprint to the mound early and often if his starters struggle.
That will be especially true if the Padres end up meeting their arch rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who ranked first in this list. The Dodgers have quality arms up and down their playoff staff, but as Nesbitt and Jennings pointed out, their closer, Tanner Scott, currently believes “baseball hates him right now.”
That’s a guy you want on the mound with everything on the line if you’re the Padres, but whether Shildt can juggle the pitching to make that happen is an open question at this point.