Padres Press Clips Monday, August 21, 2017 Article Source Author Page Padres mailbag: What's to be gained from Hunter Renfroe's UT San Diego Lin 2 demotion? Wild Lamet off the mark in Padres loss UT San Diego Sanders 4 Padres promote Fernando Tatis Jr. to Double-A San Antonio UT San Diego Sanders 6 Dusty Coleman's swing remains a work in progress UT San Diego Sanders 9 Inbox: What's ahead for Padres' rotation? MLB.com Cassavell 11 Padres can't get bats going in finale vs. Nats MLB.com Powers/Ruiz 14 Richard aims to stay on a roll vs. Cardinals MLB.com Powers 17 Fastball command eludes Lamet vs. Nats MLB.com Powers 18 Gonzalez, Nationals beat rookie Lamet, Padres 4-1 Associated Press AP 20 This Day in Padres History, 8/21 FriarWire Center 22 Padres On Deck: De Los Santos, Avila top Padres Players FriarWire Center 23 of the Week Padres On Deck: AAA-El Paso Closes on Playoff Berth FriarWire Center 25 Behind Villanueva, Overton 1 Padres mailbag: What's to be gained from Hunter Renfroe's demotion? Dennis Lin The Padres dropped to 55-69 with Sunday’s loss to the Washington Nationals. Tuesday night, they officially begin a road trip in which they’ll draw at least two problematic matchups. First up are the St. Louis Cardinals and Jedd Gyorko, who torched his former team last season with six homers in seven games. Then it’s on to Miami, where Giancarlo Stanton has been on a Ruthian pace since the All-Star break. Let’s get to the mailbag. As always, you can submit questions via Twitter or email. What do we do with Hunter Renfroe? Settle this debate once and for all. Renfroe was optioned Saturday to Triple-A El Paso, a move that surprised most observers. Internally, the Padres had discussed a potential demotion for weeks. Manager Andy Green said the club contemplated sending Renfroe down at the end of July. The right fielder simply hasn’t made adjustments the Padres had been asking him to make. After drawing 15 walks in May, he’d walked only nine times since. While he wasn’t getting on base much, what power he was providing wasn’t nearly enough to compensate. The hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League doesn’t present a serious challenge for Renfroe, the 2016 PCL MVP. This move is largely about sending a message to the rookie, who has more than enough talent to re-establish himself as a productive regular in San Diego. “Cory Spangenberg was about as upset about getting sent down as anybody I’ve ever seen,” Green said over the weekend, referencing the third baseman who was optioned out of spring training. “He handled it right after that. “When I’d call down and talk to Rod (Barajas), he’d tell me Cory Spangenberg is doing everything right, he’s working like crazy, he’s a great teammate, he’s working on his defense, he’s working on his offense. Then you look up, and he’s hitting in the middle of a major league lineup. That’s usually what happens when you couple talent with hard work.” If they send Margot down for 20 games or so, do they postpone his arbitration a year? Does that apply to renfroe ? Regardless of whether or not Manuel Margot is sent down before the end of the season (he won’t be), he still will become eligible for salary arbitration after 2019, assuming he spends the entirety of the next two seasons on the major league roster (he very likely will). The same goes for Renfroe. Players need two seasons and about 130 days of service time to reach arbitration. 2 Including their call-ups last September, Margot and Renfroe have both spent about 150 days in the majors. Speaking of service time, the Padres optioned Renfroe because of performance, not in order to delay his eventual free agency. (If the latter reason applied, especially this late in the season, they’d be in major trouble with the players’ union.) It’s true that the Padres could wind up netting an extra year of control — players need six full years of service time to reach free agency — but at that point, Renfroe would be into his 30s. This isn’t near the top of the priority list. how does pirela figure into long term plans? Jose Pirela has been the surprise of the Padres’ season. A 27-year-old who’d never received an extended big-league opportunity is hitting .295/.346/.512 through 263 plate appearances. Pirela’s defensive deficiencies limit his value, so the Padres may look to deal him to an American League team this winter or next summer. Still, his emergence has been a very welcome development. Can we expect any interesting Sept call ups? This September’s promotions won’t be nearly as interesting as last September’s. About a year ago, players like Margot, Renfroe and Carlos Asuaje were making their major league debuts. The candidates to come up next month are mostly players we’ve already seen, including outfielders Franchy Cordero and Travis Jankowski. Do you feel that Green's extension was justified? Has he shown signs that he can be a good manager? What about when the team gets better? The Padres were never going to let Green approach lame-duck status — the manager’s original contract was set to expire after 2018 — so the fact that they extended him wasn’t shocking. Some rival officials were surprised that he received three more years, as opposed to, say, two. Ownership, meanwhile, has been fully committed to Green since his hiring. The new deal proved that. Green has his detractors, but most people in the industry agree his baseball acumen is top- notch, and he’s gotten the team to play hard. Given San Diego’s current talent level, it remains a bit difficult to evaluate Green’s managerial ability. The Padres, who believe they’ll be contending for the playoffs by 2020, intend to find out exactly what they have. Will Solarte get traded this winter? Or does he figure in Pads future? Yes, there’s a chance Yangervis Solarte gets dealt. There’s also a chance the Padres move Spangenberg or even Asuaje instead. With all three infielders playing well and Luis Urias nearing his Petco Park debut, the Padres can afford to make a trade. Is the Padres opening day SS for 2018 in the organization today? I don’t think so. The Padres aren’t making the playoffs next season, but they’d like a reliable shortstop to back a young pitching staff. A.J. Preller will continue looking for external options. 3 Wild Lamet off the mark in Padres loss Jeff Sanders Gio Gonzalez flicked 46 pitches toward home plate through the first two innings of Sunday’s matinee. His defense committed two errors behind him. All the early traffic – six base runners – added up to one measly run. A wild Dinelson Lamet needed more charity than that. He needed to help himself, too. After a 4-1 loss to the Nationals, the 25-year-old Lamet’s fleeting command was as much a focal point as much as his role in the wasted opportunities that allowed Gonzalez to sidestep early trouble to turn in his NL-best 20th quality start. Lamet walked a career-high six batters, failed to move runners over with a sacrifice bunt in the second and, somehow, didn’t score from first base when Washington’s Alejando De Aza misplayed Manuel Margot’s two-out drive to right field. “There’s two different ways to look at it,” Padres manager Andy Green said. “One, you realize how good he can be. To walk six guys … and effectively give up one run through the first four innings, very few pitches can do that against a good offensive lineup. His stuff’s that good. The flip side is you can’t walk six games and expect to win a baseball game.” Green continued: “To take it a step further, if he wants to be a winning pitcher in the big leagues, learn to get bunts down, learn to run when you’re on the bases. Learn to take care of the simple things that are attainable at this point in time in his career. “He’ll be pushed that way.” Sunday’s effort snapped a string of four straight wins for Lamet, who has allowed three or fewer hits in five straight starts. As has been the case, Lamet didn’t yield his first Sunday until after the first time through the order. Wilmer Difo’s one-out double proved especially troublesome because Lamet walked Gonzalez, the pitcher, to start the third inning. After Daniel Murphy’s sacrifice fly tied the game at 1, Lamet walked two more to load the bases before Anthony Rendon swung through a full-count slider to end the threat, one of 14 swinging strikes. The slider produced nine of those. “I think the key to the game today,” Lamet said through an interpreter, “was me not being able to command that fastball early and having to resort to using my slider as a main pitch.” 4 After a one-two-three fourth, Lamet allowed a leadoff single to De Aza, a stolen base and a one- out, run-scoring double from Murphy. A third run crossed the plate when the left-handed Adam Lind greeted left-handed rookie Buddy Baumann with a run-scoring double.