Padres: Winners and losers from live-streamed intrasquad game

The Padres live-streamed their first summer camp game last night. Who stood out in both a positive and negative light?

The Padres seemed to be the last team in the league to live-stream one of their summer camp intrasquad games. On Wednesday evening, that finally came to an end in what will be the first of back-to-back nights of live games. And while the Padres came away with the victory (insert joke here), it was great to see baseball on the television again.

It’s been challenging to read about the summer camp competitions without actually witnessing it for myself. But while there were some modifications to baseball being played during a pandemic, it felt like business as usual, as Zach Davies took the mound against Garrett Richards.

Davies was the newcomer in the offseason, acquired along with Trent Grisham for Luis Urias and Eric Lauer. Let’s look at some of the winners and losers from the exhibition.

Winner: The Padres

Obviously, because intrasquad (insert joke again).

Winner: Garrett Richards

Richards looked sharp, tossing four innings and 60+ pitches. His velocity was clocked at 96 MPH in the first inning and held strong. Provided with additional time to recover from Tommy John surgery, Richards had his curveball working for him last night.

Winner: Tommy Pham

Pham was primarily held to being the DH during spring training as he recovered from a partially torn UCL. And then when summer camp began, he contracted coronavirus, putting his preparation for the season in jeopardy. However, he looked like he didn’t miss a beat, crushing the first pitch he saw, a hanging curveball from Davies. He followed that with an RBI single, driving in all three runs for the Brown team.

Winner: Francisco Mejia

Mejia went 2-for-2 in the contest with a double and a single. He’s making a strong case to be the Padres starting catcher next Friday.

Loser: Austin Hedges

Potentially entering his last year with the Padres, Austin Hedges didn’t do himself any favors when he hosted a pool party without anyone wearing a facemask or practicing social distancing measures. Manager Jayce Tingler stressed the importance of him being able to get on base this season. Then Hedges had two ugly strikeouts last night.

Loser: Taylor Trammell

Trammell had a fantastic catch to rob Trent Grisham of a home run in the top of the first inning, but he was fooled badly at the plate, striking out twice on Richards’ curveballs. Edward Olivares has been highly praised in spring training and again in summer camp. He also had a really nice at-bat, hitting an opposite-field single.

As noted, Thursday night’s game will be live-streamed as well.