Tony Gwynn faced Greg Maddux, maybe the smartest pitcher who ever lived, dozens of times and never once struck out.
He hit better than .400 against him, which is almost unfair against a pitcher that precise.
Those private duels are what make baseball worth studying pitch by pitch.
This PA has not sat right with me since it happened. Manny has been one of the biggest problems on the team. First and foremost he looks out of shape. As someone who went directly to the owner to get another extension it is quite unacceptable to at least not put in the effort in the offseason. Harper was called out by his GM and has responded. Someone in the org needs to hold Manny more accountable. I’m tired of him saying they’re going to turn it around and he keeps taking awful PA after awful PA. His numbers in important situations have been so bad it’s quite mind boggling.
I’m going to show you two pitches that encompasses the Padres offense
Notice the situation bases loaded no outs. First pitch is a nasty sweeper in a 2-1 count. You would hope Manny lays off but it’s nasty and he swings out of his shoes looking to do damage. Okay fine.
Now second pitch it’s a full count. It’s now time to be a team player. You would hope Manny shortens up his swing to make it easier for himself to cover whatever is coming. Nope, swings out of shoes again and whiffs on a pitch that has a 10.4% whiff rate. This is a selfish swing to me and it lacks situational awareness especially for a veteran. Then you have Manny nodding his head like yeah you got me. Brother you got yourself out.
The team approach is horrible. Sometimes it looks like they just go up there without a game plan. They don’t hunt pitches where they can do damage early or when it’s two strikes they don’t have a 2 strike approach. They have one mode and that’s just to swing and to swing often. Making little to no adjustments inside the same at bat.
@YankeeReport_ This one was wild, still the craziest was the padres, braves brawl in the mid 80’s. Benched cleared like 5 different times during the game
Here’s the thing with Tatis…I’ve seen enough Padres games in 40+ years that if he’s goes to another team, that organization will find his swing and he suddenly becomes 2021 again. It wouldn’t be a surprise since history keeps repeating itself with the Padres…
@RangerApologist Padres don’t suffer offer brother we’ve been a team for 60 years and have been to 2 World Series and lost both 😭 been a playoff team the past 5 years but we still get booted early lol it’s been rough