Tommy Pham, Jurickson Profar, Fernando Tatis, Jr., San Diego Padres. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
The San Diego Padres just keep getting hit by pitches in their junk.
Tommy Pham and Jurickson Profar have something in common, and it’s not great.
In back-to-back games, the San Diego Padres have had two players take a baseball to the Richard Nixon in the batter’s box. It doesn’t matter what side of the plate you’re on if you’re facing the San Francisco Giants, that baseball is going to hit you in the place where the sun don’t shine. It’s nuts really, but so is this entire 60-game, coronavirus-shortened MLB season.
On Wednesday night, Pham took it right in the junk in the Padres’ 7-6 loss to the division rival giants. While Profar was squaring up to bunt on Thursday night, he too succumbed to the same fate as his teammate Pham. The Padres won 12-7 on Thursday night to improve to 5-2 on the year. Maybe this is the year the Padres finally get back into the postseason?
If this happens on Friday, what are we to make of the San Diego Padres?
You know, it’s a painful free base for Pham and Profar. With two balls and one strike, Pham had to take his two balls and one strike to first base and then try to run over there. That sounds about as cool as being asked to square up to bunt and then having the baseball travel about as far off your body as it would had you got the bunt down. At least you’re safe at first in this situation, I guess.
So what happens if the Colorado Rockies decide to emulate the Giants pitchers on the mound? We should expect a full-blown socially-distanced bench-clearing almost brawl in Denver, Colorado. Then again, this might be the price to pay for the Padres to reach their first postseason since Bruce Bochy was their manager. He was part of all five of their postseason berths in team history.
When this socially-distanced bench-clearing brawl breaks out, that will have escalated quickly. Will someone go “Whammy!” on a pitcher who takes the concept of balls and strikes quite literally? While will be no touching of the hair and face, let’s hope someone doesn’t bring a trident to the fracas. Then again, that will be the No. 1 story in all of professional sports if it happens.
Let’s hope the Padres have a lot of spare ice in the Coors Light Field dugout because they’ll need it.