Padres: Tingler’s handling of Tatis is quick way to get run out of town

Despite the Padres winning big in Texas on Monday evening, much scrutiny surrounded how Jayce Tingler responded to Fernando Tatis Jr.’s grand slam.

The Padres finally got back in the win column on Monday night after losing five in a row. The team overall looked like the team we saw in the first couple of weeks, taking their pitches and working the count. However, with a 10-3 lead late in the game, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a grand slam on a 3-0 pitch that apparently didn’t go over too well with both Padres manager Jayce Tingler and the Rangers.

The Rangers responded by throwing behind Manny Machado, who batted after Tatis in the order. Rangers manager Chris Woodward indicated that the pitch slipped out of his pitcher’s hand, but it was obvious that he wasn’t pleased with the Padres superstar.

Back to Tingler.

He indicated that Tatis missed a 3-0 take sign and that this would be a “learning opportunity for him.” But this old school mentality of not running up the score is ridiculous. With the way this bullpen has played lately, no lead is safe. I don’t think anyone felt comfortable with the 7-2 lead earlier in the game when Pierce Johnson struggled to get through his outing, which Matt Strahm had to come in a cleanup, limiting the damage to just one run.

Tatis’ grand slam was his second home run of the evening. He roped a 17-degree solo shot earlier in the evening that had all of Padres Twitter and the broadcasters flabbergasted that it left the yard.

But whatever unwritten rules there are in baseball, Tingler cannot hold Tatis back from his potential. What he is doing as a 21-year-old is something the Padres may never see again. If you don’t want to give up a grand slam on a 3-0 pitch, perhaps don’t throw a meatball down the middle.

And the fact that Tingler is more concerned with Tatis needing to learn from this, as well as not being upset about the Rangers throwing behind Machado, is insane. That’s a quick way to get run out of town.

Matt Strahm has been electric in August

Briefly touched on above, but Matt Strahm isn’t getting enough credit for the job he’s doing in August. The Padres lefty reliever got off to a difficult start in the early going, most notably serving up a walkoff home run in San Francisco. But he has yet to yield a run or a walk this month.