Manny Machado injury: 3 Padres players who need to step up in his absence

San Diego Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer

Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer started the season extremely well and has considerably tanked since. In April, he was hitting .389/.457/.597, which was mostly better than Machado (aside from slugging percentage). This month, he’s gone down to .175/.232/.222.

He remains among the top five hitters for the Padres and has the second-best batting average, but his performance is getting weaker and he’s seemingly becoming less reliable. It’s expected for players to have off days, but to considerably drop off over an extended period is concerning.

Realistically, he’s one of the players most capable of producing similar results to Machado. Hosmer isn’t as good of a hitter, especially not this season. However, their numbers were comparable last season, with the biggest difference being Hosmer not having as much power as Machado.

If Hosmer steps up and produces the results he did earlier in the season and seasons prior, he’d make a huge impact.