San Diego Padres Need Freddy Galvis to Snap Out of His Funk

Besides the San Diego Padres needing his bat to heat up for the betterment of the team, Freddy Galvis has other, possibly even higher-pressure worries on his mind.

Over the San Diego Padres’ first seventeen games, they likely figured they’d hit the offseason-jackpot by trading for shortstop Freddy Galvis.

Besides making very tough plays at shortstop look fairly pedestrian on a somewhat regular-basis, Galvis, 28, was tearing the cover off of the ball at the plate.

A lifetime .244 hitter with a .658 OPS didn’t exactly give any of us any kind of inkling as to what type of potential the Venezuelan native has with a bat in his hands.

Padres liked what they saw out of Galvis, for sure

Over the Friars’ first few weeks of regular-season play, we saw just how valuable of a player Galvis could be to a team.

Through the team’s first seventeen games, Galvis slashed .316/.435/.421 with a home run, seven runs batted in and twelve walks in just 57 at-bats.

While we all knew that these types of numbers wouldn’t ever be sustainable, but I’ll be the first to admit that a .280/.350/.400 season could be in the works. I don’t quite think that’ll be the case though.

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Galvis slump comes at a tough time

Since April 16, in 35 at-bats Galvis has hit .086/.111/.197 with thirteen strikeouts and one walk.

That could be the most dramatically quick offensive downturn I’ve seen in recent memory.

We can only hope that this is simply a really bad slump and that Galvis will snap out of it soon.

But unless Freddy Galvis can turn things around, and very soon, .244/.658 seems to be where he’s headed.

His pristine glovework at shortstop most certainly makes up for any deficiencies he may have as an offensive player.

Unfortunately, a literal golden glove with magic powers that attract baseballs won’t ever make up for a sub-.200 batting average.

The potential is clearly there for Galvis, as evidenced by his outstanding start to the season. As a free-agent-to-be, things really couldn’t have gone much better.

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But if he can’t regain that form, or even something closely resembling it as the season wears on, he could find himself in a tough spot come this offseason.