The San Diego Padres bullpen is shouldering a major workload, and Garrett Hawkins might be able to help.
The San Diego Padres have no shortage of bullpen success stories, but the downside of these stories is that they’re very necessary. The Padres are using their bullpen in nearly every game, and that’s going to take a toll over time.
We already know who this year’s success story is in the ‘pen. Bradgley Rodriguez had a rough go of it yesterday in Mexico City against the Arizona Diamondbacks, but that will happen when you play occasional games at an altitude of 7300 feet.
The next man up will likely be Garrett Hawkins, who’s tracking toward a bullpen spot some time this summer. According to Jeff Sanders of Baseball America, Hawkins has done plenty of unique prep work to make his move, with one step including a conversation with Padres special assistant Hideo Nomo about adding a splitter as the third pitch in his mix.
“It was like, ‘Hey, man, we believe in you immensely,” Padres farm director Riley Westman said. “We’ve got some things we still want to work on if you’re open to it.”
Hawkins went big on his buy in, to the point where the British Columbia native turned down a chance to pitch for Team Canada in the WBC back in March. The Padres reliever had just been added to the 40-man roster in November, and he didn’t want to spend time away from big-league camp.
“Definitely something I wanted to do since high school and just was never really that good,” Hawkins said of the opportunity. “. . . So I was really happy to get the call just in general . . . but yeah, just the wrong year.”
It could be the right year for Hawkins, though, when it comes to coming up and staying up. The Padres have a couple of veteran relievers, David Morgan and Kyle Hart, who are scuffling some of the time right now, and while Hawkins isn’t suited for a multi-inning role, he could get spotted occasionally to take some pressure off the bullpen.
His early stats at Triple-A El Paso are trending in the right direction. His ERA is under 3.00, and Hawkins is close to striking out a batter an inning. That’s a pretty typical profile for a Padres reliever, and this kind of move would make all kinds of sense for a bullpen that’s going to be shouldering a big workload throughout the season.