CHICAGO – That was in the middle of last March Mane Machado He had just learned that his teammate and teammate Padres had the cornerstone Fernando Tates Jr. He was set to lose a big time due to a broken left wrist.
Machado, so he always was, made a prediction:
“When he wears that uniform, we’ll be in a good position. In a good place to welcome him. You don’t win a championship in the first three months of the season. You can put yourself in a really good position… that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
And they do it boy.
On Tuesday afternoon, Padres announced that Tates has not yet been allowed to resume swinging the bat, after the latest round of shooting on his ailing wrist. Tuesday night, they won another game without him – coming from behind 12-5 victory over the Cubs in Wrigley Field.
“Each man pulls the rope in the same direction,” said the second base man Jake Kronworth, who achieved his second consecutive night of three hits. “We hope we get [Tatis] He’ll be back soon, and he can give us a little spark. But the players are playing well at the moment, and we keep building every night on what we’re doing.”
When Machado made his prediction three months ago, he seemed a little optimistic. This was a team that came out of a winning 79 season, losing MVP the previous year, to one of the toughest teams in baseball. However, with Tuesday’s win, Padres remained in a hypothetical tie for first place with the Dodgers.
“It was difficult to be on the sideline,” said Tates, who trained on the field before the match. “But I am just proud of my team. We are one of the best teams in baseball without me.”
In a different time and place, news of the delay in Tates’ recovery would have felt an organizational crush. Tatis is Padres’ superstar, and one of the most exciting players in the entire sport.
But Machado was smart in his March assessment of Tates’ injury, even as the rest of the baseball world seemed to panic. The Padres will not win any playoff series in mid-June. They could only put themselves in a solid position for Tatis’ return, whenever possible.
We still don’t have an answer. But the question suddenly seems less urgent.
“We’re expecting him back — it’s just a matter of time,” Padres President of Baseball Operations AJ Briller said earlier in the afternoon. “I don’t think it changes like, ‘Hey, we need to do something from a roster standpoint.’ Guys, they’ve played really well, and we’re finding a lot of ways to win games.”
For the most part, it was push and defense that carried San Diego during Tates’ prolonged absence. But on Tuesday, the crime showed what it can do. the left Shawn Mind He was knocked out after four runs, his shortest start to the season. Padres, who had yet to overcome a deficit of more than three runs, came back strong.
Luke Voigt He resumed, doubled and drove in five runs. Jorge Alfaro Homerid, too, and was one of six Padres with multiple hits. And for the second night in a row, Padres’ team pounced on a cumbersome Cubs ball after conceding just one game.
“We just believe in each other,” the midfielder Trent Gresham He said. “It’s a buildup of a lot of things, but it boils down to: We think we’re in every game. We know our promo crew. Then we have nine tries.”
Among the Padres starters, only Machado was uninjured. Cubs quarterback Christopher Morell stole Machado with a superb diving fist in the ninth inning, keeping Machado off his 1500th career goal.
In the absence of Tatis, Machado was the constant force that Padres needed him. He put in MVP-caliber numbers while he battled the rest of the attack. Now, the rest of that group – Voight and Cronworth in particular – is beginning to take its weight.
So what will happen next? Ultimately, he will add Padres Tatis, one of the sport’s most influential players in a position where they haven’t had much production this season. They’re already a top-ranked team, and they’ve started the best 63 games in franchise history. Is it possible for them to get better?
“We still have reinforcements coming in,” Grisham said. “We have a lot of hungry men and a lot of men who believe in each other. Who knows where it might take us?”
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