Eric Hosmer confirms Padres got managerial search wrong with Jayce Tingler dig

When Eric Hosmer retired from baseball back in February, it was a reminder that his time with the San Diego Padres didn't exactly meet fans' expectations. The Padres gave Hosmer a $144 million deal only for him to post a .738 OPS in his first four seasons in San Diego while averaging 15 homers a year.

While not a total disaster, it wasn't that surprising at all that the Padres decided to move on and trade him to the Red Sox in 2022.

Now that he's retired, Hosmer is seemingly more than willing to share his views and stories from his career very, very freely.

One such story involved a game against the Marlins back in 2021 where bench coach Ship Schumaker got his money's worth after getting ejected because the umpire seemingly forgot what the strike zone looked like. The story was great, but what is more notable is that in reacting to the interview, Hosmer threw some not-so-subtle shade at former Padres manager Jayce Tingler.

Eric Hosmer was most definitely not a fan of former Padres manager Jayce Tingler

Jayce Tingler's tenure as the Padres manager was a polarizing one. San Diego hired Tingler to replace Andy Green over Ron Washington, who is now managing the Angels after current Rangers manager and former Padres skipper Bruce Bochy rebuffed their advances for a return. Tingler did get named a finalist for NL Manager of the Year with San Diego and got them back to the postseason, but the times were clearly not all good as the Padres fired him after the 2021 season.

In addition to inconsistent results, including finishing below .500 and missing the playoffs in 2021, Tingler's relationship with the clubhouse was often strained. In one famous incident, Tingler put Fernando Tatis Jr. on blast unnecessarily for violating the unwritten rules of baseball for hitting a grand slam during a rout.

Based on Hosmer's comments, that does not appear to have been an isolated incident, and the perception was that Tingler did not have his players' backs.

This is a weird situation given that the source of these comments may be 100% correct, but Hosmer probably shouldn't be one to throw stones in glass houses because underperformance didn't exactly help during Tingler's managing days. Then again, more and more, it seems like the Padres' clubhouse was a bit of a mess all around with Tingler at the center.

It is fair to wonder, then, if Washington could have kept that group in line more and made the playoff run that so many expected them to make.

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