Padres’ offense noticeably weaker with Manny Machado injured

The San Diego Padres temporarily lost slugger Manny Machado to an ankle injury, and in the week since you can already see the hole he has left.

The Padres started well without him by sweeping the Arizona Diamondbacks in a three-game series, but nearly got swept by the Philadelphia Phillies in their next series.

The Diamondbacks are under .500 and significantly below San Diego in the NL West standings, so it’s not surprising to see San Diego take the series. However, the Phillies are above .500 and so they were a bit more competition.

San Diego made quite a few shifts in the roster to try to accommodate the recent loss of Machado and maintain the long-term loss of Fernando Tatís Jr.

Ha-Seong Kim, Tatís’ shortstop replacement this season, was moved to third base to cover Machado and C.J. Abrams was put as the starter at shortstop.

Abrams isn’t a great hitter and just made his MLB debut in April. This season, he’s hitting a low .190/.261/.266. Undoubtedly, he won’t produce nearly what the best Padres’ hitters are. However, San Diego doesn’t have many other options.

San Diego Padres rookie C.J. Abrams becomes the starter at shortstop

Abrams has replacement-level wins above replacement (-0.2), so not much was expected from him. He didn’t produce much. Over 24 at-bats, he only had five hits and six total bases, none of which were walks.

However, he did still slightly help the Padres. Though he is far from having a breakout, he contributed to two runs over the week, one of which was part of a close 3-2 victory.

Before Machado’s injury, the Padres, on average, were scoring 4.75 runs per game. In the past seven games without him, their average has gone down to 3.85.

The lineup, overall, hasn’t produced anything unexpected. The Padres’ leading hitters Jurickson Profar, Jake Cronenworth and Eric Hosmer have been the main contributors to runs over the week. Though Profar has noticeably stepped up throughout the entire month, Machado’s absence is certainly still noticeable.