Padres: Joey Lucchesi and Josh Naylor optioned to alternate training site

In a stunning turn of events, the Padres sent Joey Lucchesi and Josh Naylor to the team’s alternate training site. The roster is down to 28 players.

Color me shocked because while I knew that the Padres would be cutting two players from their roster on Thursday, Joey Lucchesi was not on my radar. I suggested that skipping his turn in the rotation had bigger implications, but demoting him is not what I was anticipating.

The 27-year-old struggled to eat innings in both of his starts this year, creating a piggy-back situation with Cal Quantrill. In the series finale against the Diamondbacks, the duo combined to go five innings with three strikeouts, with Lucchesi tossing 3.2 innings.

But it was painfully obvious that after his disaster of a start last Saturday in Colorado, where he lasted all of 1.2 innings, the Padres needed to make a change. I expected that Lucchesi would stick around, but potentially as a long-reliever, similar to Quantrill basically.

However, the bullpen is pretty crowded, so I guess the team felt it was best for him to work on things at the alternate training site.

In a less shocking move, the team also sent Josh Naylor down, who had yet to produce in limited playing time. Produce and limited playing time are difficult to come by, but that’s the nature of the beast right now in this shortened season. Naylor had a .231 average, zero home runs, and zero RBI in six games.

Rosters were initially set to reduce to 26 players in two weeks, but that has since been canceled. Now, we’ll see how Naylor’s demotion impacts Edward Olivares‘ playing time, as he’s been the odd man out lately. And while the .235 batting average isn’t overly impressive, he had four hits, including a double, and an RBI in six games.

Also, who do we think replaces Lucchesi in the rotation?