Padres might have waited too long to start worrying about Matt Waldron after bad loss

Is the fun already over? Based on Matt Waldron's most recent start, the answer might be, yes. The San Diego Padres' starter allowed a career-high 10 runs during Wednesday's game against the Minnesota Twins and fans are beginning to wonder how much longer Waldron will remain on the active roster.

This latest performance may have been Waldron's worst, but he's had a number of bad outings of late. Only once in his last five starts has Waldron allowed fewer than five earned runs, and that came against the hapless Colorado Rockies.

Over his last five starts, Waldron is 1-2 with a 10.50 ERA. The rookie has allowed 33 hits during that span, and six of those balls have left the yard. During those five games, the opposition is flat-out pounding Waldron into submission to the tune of a .324 batting average against. Opposing batters own a .951 OPS against Waldron since July 30. This is not good, Pads fans.

Padres might have waited too long to start worrying about Matt Waldron after another bad loss

Now, Waldron is not an ace. At best, he's a back-of-the-rotation starter. But Waldron's mid-season exploits had many of the Friar faithful believing that he was San Diego's best starter for a span of five weeks. There was an eight-game stretch from mid-May through late-June when Waldron could do no wrong. The 27-year-old was 4-1 in those eight contests and posted 49 strikeouts in 50 innings of work. Waldron owned a spectacular 1.80 ERA and 2.48 FIP during that timeframe.

But all good things must come to an end, and the feel-good story surrounding the knuckleballer could turn into a nightmare rather quickly if AJ Preller and the San Diego front office don't have a backup plan.

While effective at times, the knuckleball is more or less a gimmick. Waldron went to the knuckleball just 24% of time on Wednesday. When the righty was at his best earlier this season, there were times when Waldron would go to his knuckleball more than 40% of the time, and on average, he goes it 38% of the time.

The Padres may need to swap out one of their minor league starters for Waldron over the final month of the season, but Randy Vasquez has not been much better; both in the major and minor leagues. It might be too late to fix this problem, but it helps that the Padres have been the best team in MLB during the second half even with how badly Waldron has fallen off.

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