San Diego Padres First Week: Good, Bad and Scary

The first week of San Diego Padres baseball is in the books, and despite being wildly inconsistent, the club has held together fairly well.

The first week of the San Diego Padres season played out like a roller coaster ride with exciting wins, depressing losses and scary injury news.

Record-breaking crowds showed up for the opening series against the division rival Giants, and the home team took two or three games. But Trevor Cahill, one of the starters in an already shaky rotation, has already bitten the dust at least for the time being.

In the scary news department, Hector Sanchez has been put on the seven-day concussion disabled list after taking a ball to the mask, a regular occurrence for catchers.

Related Story: San Diego Padres: Week #1 Recap

For Sanchez, a valuable backup to Austin Hedges who can also sub for Wil Myers at first, this is his seventh concussion. And, as he said himself, “you don’t play around with your brain.” This leaves the team with only Rule-5 draftee Luis Torrens and pitcher/outfielder-in-training Christian Bethancourt to spell Hedges.

The turnout at Petco proves that Padres fans, a resilient bunch, do seem to be buying into the current strategy. Management has even backed off on the very unpopular new blue uniforms as the long-term solution. Although the team may not bring back the brown completely, as a passionate portion of the fan base hopes, it will reportedly seek outside advice on the divisive issue. Unfortunately, after the first week of the season, the team does find itself in

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Unfortunately, after the first week of the season, the team does find itself in last place in run differential at -17.0. The Arizona Diamondbacks lead all of baseball at +19.0. But Yangervis Solarte has started the season with a .370/.414/.667 slash line. He and Myers also have two home runs and lead the team in RBI.

Pitchers Jarred Cosart and Christian Bethancourt find themselves with ugly ERAs at 27.00 and 32.40, respectively. However, they can’t begin to match the unsightly ERA of 135.00 hung on Washington Nationals’ starter Jeremy Guthrie in Saturday’s game against the Phillies, if that’s any consolation. Guthrie has since been designated for assignment. Fortunately, General Manger A.J. Preller already took a flyer on him last year when he signed Guthrie to a minor-league deal, so he probably won’t be tempted to bring him back.

Next: Series Preview: Padres vs. Rockies

With a trip to Colorado’s Coors Field the roller coaster ride will get even more exciting and unpredictable.