San Diego Padres: Week #23 recap

Breaking down all of the San Diego Padres in a week featuring some very impressive yet also some disappointing moments for the club.

The Padres hit the road for a four game series against the St Louis Cardinals, winning one of the four games. All but one of the games was close with the offense stalling when the pitching was great and the pitching having hiccups when the offense scored a few runs. The team won the last game of the series with Clayton Richard pitching 6 shut out innings and the bullpen (Stammen, Yates, Hand) finishing it up to complete the shut out.

The Friars then traveled to Arizona for a three game series versus the Diamondbacks, who were on a 13 game win streak, and reversed the trend with two brilliant games on both offense and defense to take two of the three games.

New pitching addition Jordan Lyles gave up 4 runs in 5 IP and recent bullpen addition Jose Valdez allowed 2 runs in 0.1 IP but the offense more than made up for it with a 14 hit, 10 run outburst that gave them the victory.

The second game in the series was one for the record books.

Behind 6-0 going into the 7th inning, the Padres staged a rally to pull within 4 runs. The Dbacks got one back in the eighth against Phil Maton but then the most improbable 9th inning occurred.

With supposed mop up man Andrew Chafin on the mound the Friars, led by Will Myers, staged a dramatic comeback. Scoring two runs on a Solarte single and Myers homer the Padres drove Chafin from the mound and former Padres closer Fernando Rodney entered to close it out.

After a Spangenberg strike out, Jabari Blash singles then advances to second on a wild pitch. Austin Hedges doubles with Blash scoring.  Erick Aybar pinch hits for Maton and singles to drive in Hedges. The Pads have now pulled to within one run.

The Dbacks send the pitching coach to the mound but stick with Rodney. Manny Margot greets that decision with another single and Erick Aybar advances to second. Carlos Asuaje singles to left and with Aybar scoring, left fielder David Peralta misplays the ball with Margot scoring and Asuaje advancing to third.

The Padres now have a 8-7 lead with a new pitcher entering the contest. Jose Pirela and Yangervis Solarte both make outs and the Padres bring Brad Hand in for his 17th save.

It wasn’t easy. With the bases loaded and two outs, Hand strikes out Ketel Marte to secure the win and the biggest come from behind victory of the 2017 season and the most runs scored in an inning since April 2016 against Colorado.

What made this all the more enjoyable was that the Padres ended the Dbacks 13 game win streak and took 2 of 3 in the series.

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Myers has continued his improved performance with 3 HR and 7 RBI for the week giving him a .348/.400/.783 slash line for the 7 games.

Unfortunately, Travis Wood is doing a pretty good impression of Jered Weaver with 7 runs allowed in 2 IP and 2 HR in his start against the Cardinals.

Some might wonder why we have not seen a significant expansion of the roster over the last week and a half. The biggest reason would be that 3 of the 4 full season minor league teams advanced to the playoffs in their respective divisions. Possibly a great sign of things to come for the major league squad.

Next: Week #23 power rankings update

This week features a quick two game away series versus Minnesota followed by three in Colorado.