Something HAS TO Change...

Something has to change as the Padres keep faltering in all the worst places. What's going on? How can they fix it? Are we screwed? Let's talk about it. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Padres Digest with your host Andrew, where his light is too bright. There we go. And we're upset because the Padres suck. Before we get too deep into it though, I should probably say I was at work today, so I missed the entire game. But as always, I watch the highlights. I go on the everythings and look at the game. So I know how it went. So as always, also, if I miss anything, let me know. But yeah, before we get too deep into it, please subscribe as always. Follow us on Ex-Padres Digest. And of course, this video is brought to you by Prize Picks. Prize Picks is America's number one sports picks app and the best way to get in on the action. We'll get into some picks later in the video, but use code Digest and play $5, get $50 instantly. Sign up today. It helps the channel out a ton. Thank you so much Prize Picks. So what happened today? Well, we sucked. I guess the quickest way is just to show you what happened. So 2-3, not great. I mean, we scored, that's cool, but Padres lose to the Cardinals 3-2 and St. Louis takes the series lead. Only four hits for San Diego tonight. King went 4.1, three earned runs, three walks and couldn't keep the Cardinals off the board early. France and Merrill drove in the two Padres runs, but it wasn't enough against Palante's gem. St. Louis now leads the series 4-2. Uh, yeah. So that sucks. We can't win the series anymore, which means if there's a tiebreaker, we're screwed. Woo. Oh God. Who's the top performer? Nobody. No one deserves it. Everyone pissed me off. And I can't imagine you guys watching it, how pissed off you were, but the problem, there it is. This offense is just way too inconsistent. I mean, yeah, we were one for two at runners in scoring position, but like we literally just weren't getting on base. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, we had some hits, four hits. That's cool. But like why aren't we getting more? You know what I mean? And it's not like he's a crazy good pitcher. I mean, 376 is good, but like it's hittable. You know what I mean? Yeah, he's good, but it's hittable. You know what I mean? It's just with this offense, I feel like we should be doing so much better. I mean, even Stammen knows it, right? So this is from a post game, Craig Stammen on the Padres League, worst offense. It gets to the point where it's a little frustrating and we need to do something about it. Curious what that something is in Stammen's mind. Don't even care if it's Seuss's fault or not. We're at the point where none of that matters anymore. He just has to go. And I am in kind of a similar boat, I guess. Like I said, and I know I said it before, let me press that. We have until mid June to figure things out. I said that a bunch of times last May. It's the 16th. We're in mid June. And while there are times where we have figured it out, and if you checked my ex, I talked about how the Padres offense has slightly improved over the past 10 games. According to the previous 10 games. Let me just find you just real quick. Okay. Let me bring it up. Last 10 games. Sorry. It's a little small. I jam pack a lot of things, but the last 10 games, this is from yesterday. So not including today, but we had 10 home runs, 37 RBIs, a 220 average, which isn't great. Right. But before that pre six, five, so pre June 5th, 203, strikeouts are a huge difference. We had 94 back then, but now we only had 74 more runs, more RBIs, less home runs, but by one. So it's a balance between, we are looking better in some aspects, but more of the same old. Right. And I'm at the point now where I like, I genuinely don't know if firing Sousa is even going to do anything. You know what I mean? So I came up with like a pros and cons or like a, should we, shouldn't we fire hitting coach. Right. So expected Woba were on a bottom quarter, 24th batting average, obviously we're last batting average versus expecting batting average, which means we're under contact slug under rest of the stuff you can look at. Right. So if we do fire him, the case for making a change now, of course, we're dead last in the MLB, which is 26 points below league average. It's not a cold stretch. That's a season long pattern. Quality of contact is genuinely bad. Expected Woba is bad. Negative differentials across batting average slug Woba. It's not just unlucky. The contact quality literally is not there. Consistently inconsistent offense. Pitching has had his up and downs, but the bullpen has been solid. The offense has the one constant inconsistently inconsistent and rookie coach given an impossible job. Sousa jr had never coached before being handed the reins of a team already struggling offensively and expected to fix it. So I don't envy him. Like obviously the Padres have never been as good as they should be offensively, in my opinion, but I think they really handed him a massive problem and they're like, figure it out. You know what I mean? And that's his job, obviously. I'm not trying to like give him like pity. Uh, but you know, it wasn't easy, but if we keep him, the offense technically is trending up and I showed you those stats from before. So the work might actually be paying off, but also more importantly, changing philosophy mid season is risky. A new hitting coach in June means new approach, new language, new trust, building that disruption takes time. This team doesn't have, and I'll skip to the last one. The revolving door has never worked. Nine hitting coaches in 11 years under Preller. Maybe the problem isn't Sousa jr. It's the constant overhaul of the offensive philosophy every single year, almost every year. Right? So we change it up a lot. And you can just see the whole thing on Tati's jr. Tati's jr's entire swing has changed so much. So, so much from other people telling him to do this, telling him to do that. Like we, if anyone has anyone, if there's anyone to blame for Tati's downfall, yeah, Tati's, but we didn't help by changing everything about him. Right. And his injuries, don't get me wrong. I know we had to change some things for his injuries, but like we didn't hit, we didn't have no favors. Right. And then finally, the second half could be different. If the trending numbers are real, July, September could look completely different. Pulling the trigger now might kill the momentum before it builds. So if we do fire him and the Padres are getting better and we're just being impatient, then we kind of lose the entire possibility of the second half being our half. Cause the second half is enough time to make up ground and become a solid team. Right? Like it's not over yet. We're still above 500, which is great. We're still technically in the wild card hunt. So it's not over yet. So is press, is firing Sousa panicking or intelligent? I know you guys will give me your opinions down below, but feel free. Right. But we're not going to have any, uh, easy tests next time because the Padres get the Braves and the Dodgers and we have to go to Wrigley. Like I feel like this is where the season could completely go off the rails. And it's true. This is a make or break moment. We played under performing teams. Now we're playing over performing team and the Cardinals. And then we're just going to play really good teams. Right. I think the Braves still have the best record in baseball. If not the Dodgers do and the Cubs just destroy us for some reason. So yeah, it's, it's not great. So my thoughts on this, while all signs might point to firing him, changing a hitting philosophy mid season may hurt more than help the Padres. That being said with the way of this offense has performed this year so far, there's no guarantee that they'll ever figure it out. So yeah, under we'll figure it out under Sosa league. I wrote this and I still can't read it properly. Honestly, I'm not sure if keeping him or firing him is entirely a good decision, but either way it'll affect the Padres in ways we probably won't enjoy seeing. I'm not giving up, but it's kind of like we've made it this far and struggled doing this. And we have had moments where we have figured it out. And I mean, you can tell in Tatis, Tatis is the greatest example for this. Tatis went from hitting only ground balls, hitting the ball very hard, but only in the ground to now he's actually getting home runs and he's actually hitting the ball, uh, in the air more, right? Like he almost had a home run today. Uh, and then Jackson Merrill almost did too. So like he has improved immensely. Is that Sosa or is that him? I don't know. Manny Machado has improved contact wise. Jackson Merrill has slightly improved his, uh, width rate. I'm pretty sure I've double checked that, but like there are things that are working, but how long are you willing to wait for them to actually pay off? Cause there's no guarantee it'll pay off this year. That being said, if we keep them around, maybe next year we'll become the best offensive team in the league. I don't know. It's a risk. Are you willing to take that risk? Or do you want to do coach number 10, uh, for the Padres? Yes, you can say fire AJ Preller, but either way, we're gonna get a new coach anyway. So, you know, is that what you want? Or should we just finally stick with somebody? You know what I mean? It's a lot. It's a lot. I'll quickly do pitching real quick. I just want to say Michael King, not good today. Yes. He only gave up three earned runs, but I'm keeping the same energy I would for canning or G Alito. Three walks is not great. 4.1 Eddings pitch is not great. He literally had no location all night. Papa Frank said Kinger would tell you himself that he pitched like crap. 4.1 Eddings pitch is just unacceptable. He couldn't locate anything consistently having high pitch count at bats and barely generating any whiffs. Not good enough for a team that is reeling. Sinkered 98, not great, but that was his only weapon today. Sweeper 109, but generated 22% whiff rate, but the changeup and foreseam got punished hard. The pen did come to Matsui, Marnaccio, Peralta. They did fine, right? Well, we'll ignore that, but King has just not looked like himself. And the worst part is we really needed him to play good today because G Alito was, I don't want to say an automatic loss, but an expected loss. King was the only one that we could have and should have won. Canning is a coin toss. I don't know what canning we're going to get, but I genuinely think there's a real possibility we might get swept tomorrow. And I need you guys to accept that we might get swept tomorrow and it's going to suck. I'm hoping, hoping this is another kick in the butt for the Padres, but this might just be a case of Padres. I forget what year it was. 21 or 23, but like we won like three games and we lost four games. We win three games and we lose like five games. And then we went like six games, like that kind of limbo. I think this team might be that kind of team again, where we're just in a constant limbo of winning and losing. It sucks, but that's baseball. But yeah. What do you guys think? Do you fire Sousa? Keep Sousa? Is it the team's fault? I have a poll that'll probably come out tomorrow morning and you guys can vote on. I'll post this right now again. Sorry, I'm late, but I don't know. It's, just let me know how you feel right now. Before we end the video though, let's talk about the picks today. I almost did really good today. Uh, Payante or is it Palante? Did they say Palante or Payante? Cause it should be Payante. Anyways, 2.5 strikeouts more. That's a given for the Padres. So that was a very smart pick on my end. Michael King screwed me. More than four strikeouts. This man got one strikeout. So Michael King, not a safe pick right now. My fault. Samad Taylor is the GOAT. He got a hit. I'm happy there, but I almost had a perfect day with my perfect picks, but you guys can use your Padres knowledge to make your own picks. Get these kinds of picks going. Uh, also a couple of things today. Today we'll talk about Tuesday, but let's talk about, well, I said the Anime Playoffs are over. So let's talk about Taco Tuesday then. The tacos are going nowhere. Our board is serving up discounted projections on Tuesday all day long. I know Tuesday is over, but save it for next Tuesday or not. Flex Friday is coming up pretty soon. Uh, but yeah. Thank you guys so much for watching. Please subscribe as always. I kind of hurt my voice today, so sorry if it sounds a little weird. Uh, but yeah, thank you for watching. Keep your chin up, head up, chin and head up. Whatever. Goodbye. Padres, please win tomorrow. Follow us on Ice Padres Digest. Uh, also we have a Facebook now. Uh, I haven't posted on it yet, but I'll tell you guys about it in next video probably. Okay. Goodbye.