The Padres activated Manny Machado from the paternity list before tonight’s series opener against the Phillies. More notably, he’s in the lineup at third base for the first time this season.
Machado had been limited to designated hitter for the first few weeks. Last October, he underwent surgery to repair the extensor tendon in his right elbow. The offseason provided enough of a recovery window for Machado to resume hitting by Opening Day, but he wasn’t quite ready to throw at the level needed to play the left side of the infield. That’s evidently no longer the case.
Rookie Graham Pauley is in the DH spot tonight against Aaron Nola. The Friars used Jurickson Profar as the designated hitter in three of the four games that Machado missed while on paternity leave. Profar is back in left field for today’s contest.
Machado will probably still see a fair amount of DH action in the next couple weeks. It stands to reason that manager Mike Shildt and the coaching staff will be wary of putting too much stress on his arm right away. As Machado builds increasingly back to everyday third base work, San Diego could rotate various players through the DH spot.
The Friars have had to live without much offensive production at third base as they’ve relied on utility players to handle the position for a few weeks. San Diego third basemen — primarily Tyler Wade and Eguy Rosario — have combined for a .228/.291/.316 slash line. That ranks 19th in MLB in on-base percentage and 21st in slugging. Rosario and Wade can each play multi-positional roles off the bench, while Matthew Batten was optioned to accommodate Machado’s reinstatement to the active roster.
Perfect. Now let’s go get a real DH. Wonder if that’s their plan for Solano?
Nelson Cruz wud like a word
What exactly would that “word” from Nelson Cruz be?
“Hey Padres, do not get a ‘real DH,’ remember the bad results I turned in last year? Just cycle random people through the DH spot.”
Brandon Belt and his 136 ops+ from last year are just sitting on the sidelines, waving.
I get that he’s a platoon DH, but it’s the strong side of the platoon. He had 404 plate appearances last season.
Continues to baffle that he isn’t playing somewhere considering the league wide offensive outage.
The word is no.
Meltdowns aside, I wish the manager and staff would figure out that Xander Badwrist is historically a better number two hitter and that HSK is a better leadoff hitter…
Agreed. Get X out of the leadoff spot
I love how they signed Xander for 11 years as a shortstop, but it only took them 1 year to move him to 2nd
Is DH next for him???
Well, they dropped him to the 5-slot if that helps.
Padres need to keep losing so the Braves acquire Cease mid season
Don’t worry padres will continue to lose.!!!!
They have lost five in a row. No surprise. The offense on Quaaludes. The pitching staff would hold the opponent to one or two runs and still suffer a loss because this offense sucks. They split a series in Colorado! AJ Peller must go; he signed some dogs who have turned on their owner.
Bogey needs to hit 8th or 9th for a while. Manny and Tatis need to watch T. Gwynn video to learn how to control their bats so all those 105 mph hard hit balls find grass instead of gloves. Otherwise they’re just .240 BA/0.725 OPS guys. I’m glad they gave Pauley a shot in April, but he isn’t ready for ML pitching and is hurting the team. Given that Profar will be our AS representative, it’s time to work a trade for a bat.