Padres News: Quack is Back

The Padres made several moves Friday heading into their big weekend series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. To help get ready for it, they made a reinforcement move for the bullpen bringing up Kevin Quackenbush and sending Shawn Kelley to the DL as reported by Derek Togerson of NBC 7.

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Kelley had been struggling and in fact had taken two of the teams’s seven losses heading into Friday’s matchup. Friday Andrew Cashner racked up his third loss of the season, though an argument could be made that he didn’t really pitch that bad in any of those losses. His ERA stands at just 2.63 and if he hadn’t gone up against an even better Zack Greinke that outcome might have been different as reported by Corey Brock.

“You can’t win a division in April, but you can lose it.” said Will Middlebrooks to Togerson Friday pre-game.

That certainly seemed to be the overall feeling and the Padres had their moments in the game, failing in the second to capitalize on a bases loaded, nobody out situation before Alexi Amarista and Cashner struck out before Myers lined out to second to end the inning.

Back to the Quackenbush call up for a second. Earlier this off-season before the trade of Craig Kimbrel, I had even argued that Quack would be a better closer than Benoit. Apparently the Padres brass did indeed recognize that they preferred Benoit in his familiar set-up role than trying to make him into the full-time closer which is why they brought in Kimbrel. Quackenbush was sent to AAA and indeed even now this call up may be temporary unless another bullpen member falters and is sent down. Or if the Padres don’t think they need two left-handed pitchers after all. Another upcoming roster move question will be when Melvin Upton Jr.is finally ready to play this season who will go down. Corey Spangenberg has been hitting well, and Venable’s outfield flexibility and defense is also nice to have. My guess would still be Spangenberg though unless Jedd Gyorko goes on the DL with a mystery ailment to explain his slow start again.

Quackenbush has trimmed his beard nearly in half so that he might actually look more like his player profile than the wild man. Unfortunately, he did log an inning + in Friday night’s game and allowed an extra insurance run for the Dodgers to build their lead to 3 on the evening. The Dodgers and Padres square off in Game 2 tonight at 5:40 PM. Ian Kennedy makes his anticipated return from the DL to face Brandon McCarthy who is off to a 2-0 start with a 4.50 ERA.

Next: Kennedy to Start Saturday