SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres will make every effort to add help by the trade deadline, if they must.
For now, however, the $246 million roster that was put together in the offseason will have to suffice.
“We have a team that we like a lot,” Padres President of Baseball Operations A.J. Preller said Friday afternoon. “We have high expectations. We feel like we have a lot of talent, some really good ballplayers that are going to work every day to make sure we’re in a spot to win a game and keep getting better. … I think everybody understands where we’re at, and we’re gonna get this turned around.”
Where the Padres were after Friday night’s 6-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox was five games below .500 and in fourth place in the National League West, with the last-place Colorado Rockies just a game behind them.
Rafael Devers hit two home runs and the Red Sox scored five runs in the second inning to build six-run lead that was countered only by Fernando Tatis Jr.’s home run in the third inning.
Multiple people inside the organization have asserted the Padres will be as active as they need to be at trade deadline. They are too far into their “win now” mode to back off now.
But Preller said that is a ways away — in terms of the calendar and because it has not been determined what significant additions might be needed.
“A big part of this is we like our group,” Preller said before the game. “I think we have a talented team that is gonna win a lot of games. And we’re still in the process — this early in the season, there’s not a lot of activity among teams. So I think more of what we’re looking at is within the system and then on our current team, how to get guys to play up to their level.”
Playing for the first time since a team meeting following Wednesday’s loss to the Kansas City Royals, the Padres came out swinging Friday but quickly settled into some recent habits — having a threat in the first inning short-circuited by a questionable risk on the bases and extinguished by being unable to get a crucial hit.
Tatis led off the bottom of the first with a single he inexplicably tried to turn into a double. The grounder through the left side was closed on and picked up quickly by Rob Refsnyder, the left fielder, who threw out Tatis.
The attempt to make something happen may well have cost the Padres, as Ha-Seong Kim followed with a single that almost undoubtedly would have moved Tatis to third. Xander Bogaerts flied out, which theoretically would have scored Tatis. Instead, Juan Soto drew a one-out walk before Nelson Cruz struck out.
Then again, it may not have made a difference, in that the Padres are batting just .185 with runners at third base with less than two outs, .188 with the bases loaded and an MLB-worst .196 with runners in scoring position.
Those failures — not to mention the combined .762 OPS by Tatis, Soto, Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado entering Friday’s game — are arguably the biggest reasons the Padres are 20-25.
Machado was placed on the injured list Friday with a fracture in his left hand, which will sideline him at least another five games.
“Anytime you’re 40 games into it, there’s a concern,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said before the game. “So, you know, it’s up to everybody to just perform a little better. It’s been the offensive end. We’ve been good defensively. Our pitching has been pretty good. We’ve just been a little bit short offensively and, especially, as documented, with runners in scoring position.”
One player who had seemed to be settling into the season had a rough couple innings Friday.
Snell entered the game having allowed a total of seven runs over his previous three starts and having pitched six innings in each of those starts.
After Devers’ solo home run in the first, however, the Red Sox added five runs in the third (on a double, two walks, a two-run double by Refsnyder and a three-run homer by Devers) before Snell recorded an out.
Brent Honeywell relieved Snell at the start of the fifth and threw three scoreless innings and Tom Cosgrove followed with two more scoreless innings.
Not that it mattered.
With two one-out singles and a two-out walk, the Padres loaded the bases in the bottom of the fourth before Adam Engel popped out.
And that was it.
The Padres had one baserunner over the final five innings.
