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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Andrew Joseph

Ha-Seong Kim’s throw to an empty first base summed up the Padres’ embarrassing season so far

The San Diego Padres went into the season hoping to compete with the Dodgers for the NL West title. On paper, there’s plenty of talent, and they spent big to have free agent Xander Bogaerts join Juan Soto, Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. on roster.

This team really should not be battling it out with the Rockies at the bottom of the NL West. But after watching their first play in the field of Thursday’s game against the Washington Nationals, it’s easy to see why the Padres are struggling.

They’re making mistakes that contending teams simply do not make.

In the bottom of the first inning, Padres third baseman Ha-Seong Kim made a sweet diving effort on a line drive off the bat of Lane Thomas but couldn’t make the catch.

First baseman Jake Cronenworth assumed that Kim made the catch, so he didn’t go to first base to cover the bag. That ended up being quite the blunder as Kim came up firing to first with Cronenworth watching the ball sail by the empty bag.

Even if it seemed like Kim made the catch initially, Cronenworth has to realize that an out wasn’t called and be at first for the throw. There’s an umpire at third base for a reason, after all.

Thomas advanced to second on the error — which unfortunately was charged to Kim — and would later score in the inning.

Fans also had thoughts on the blunder.

This was how Twitter reacted

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