Trio of Padres Stars Dealing With (Reportedly) Minor Injuries

If you tuned in to watch the Padres beat the Athletics in Wednesday's series finale, you might have noticed a conspicuous lack of star power. That’s because Tuesday was particularly rough, physically. (It was also rough emotionally, as Dylan Cease soldiered through the worst start of his decorated career, but that’s another story.) In a matter of hours, three of the team’s linchpins went down with various injuries of various severity to various body parts. Let’s break down their various breakdowns and discuss the backup plans they’ll implement in the meantime.

It started with Jackson Merrill, who was put on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain on Tuesday morning. The team has made it clear that the injury isn’t severe, and that they expect Merrill back at 100% when he’s eligible to return on April 18 against the Astros. “The good news is, at the moment, it doesn’t appear to be anything overly serious,” manager Mike Shildt told reporters. “There wasn’t a traumatic event that caused it. There was some tightness that clearly is real. He’s working really diligently, as you would expect, to get treatment. We just felt like it was going to be close to the 10 days, right at that mark.” In the meantime, the Padres have called up Oscar Gonzalez to take Merrill’s roster spot. Gonzalez arrived in Sacramento in the middle of Tuesday’s game, immediately made a costly error in left field, and ripped a hard-hit ball that found a glove.

Cronenworth’s early exit from Tuesday’s game seemed to stem from a hit-by-pitch he suffered in Chicago on Sunday at the hands of Ben Brown. His exit was chalked up to a contusion on his right side.

That certainly bears all the hallmarks of a contusion in the making. In the third inning on Tuesday, Cronenworth grounded out to second and immediately bent over in obvious pain. At first glance, it was reminiscent of when a player fouls a ball directly off their foot. He didn’t even attempt to take a head toward first.

Cronenworth left the game, but told reporters “I think I should be good to go for Friday.”

That leaves Tatis, who also injured himself on a swing, and whose injury was by far the scariest of the bunch. Tatis has a long history of injuries, especially to his left shoulder, which required surgery in 2022. In the top of the second, he swung and missed at a 1-0 pitch and immediately winced, as the follow-through clearly hurt his left shoulder. He was able to take another swing during the at-bat, but it appeared to be a very careful one.

Tatis came up twice more, walking and lifting a fly ball to right field, but he exited the game after the top of the fourth inning. After the game, a team spokesman said that Tatis was dealing with “soreness and irritation,” and Tatis made it clear that he wasn’t concerned that it would amount to anything long-term. “I have felt this before,” he told reporters. “I have dealt with this before, multiple times, different ways. So it’s something that we can definitely handle… For me, it’s just let’s see how we wake up tomorrow. I’m not going on the IL or nothing like that. So, day to day so far.” Shildt chimed in with his own reassurances, saying, “[He’s] checking out medically. Everything seems to be intact, in good shape, strength good. He’s not overly concerned. So we erred on the side of caution tonight, and we’ll evaluate.”

Obviously, it’s easier to feel optimistic about Merrill and Cronenworth. While it’s not great that Merrill is experiencing hamstring tightness out of the blue – hamstring injuries have a nasty habit of resurfacing – he doesn’t have a long injury history and it’s encouraging that the team isn’t taking any chances with it. If, as it seems, Cronenworth’s injury stems from the hit-by-pitch on Sunday, then sitting on Wednesday and the day off today really should do him a world of good. We’ll just have to hold our breath when it comes to Tatis. It’s hard to imagine the Padres taking any chances if they think there could be something wrong with his left shoulder. His injury history is too long and too much of the team’s success, both in the short- and long-term, depend upon his shoulders for them to risk further injury.

After Thursday's game, Shildt offered an update on both Cronenworth and Tatis “We’re optimistic for Friday,” he told reporters. “But again, we’ve got some time between now and then to evaluate it.”

In the meantime, Oscar Gonzalez can hold down an outfield spot with replacement-level performance during Merrill’s absence, and Brandon Lockridge will see his playing time increase. If Cronenworth’s injury should turn out to need more time, well, this is why you go out and sign a utility player like Jose Iglesias, who was a major contributor on the field and a beloved glue guy off the field during the Mets’ 2024 playoff run, putting up 2.5 fWAR in just 85 games. Iglesias can play all over the infield and even got his first ever shot at left field on Tuesday. He made some awkward catches but avoided big mistakes.

When healthy, Tatis is an MVP candidate and pretty much irreplaceable. Losing him for any stretch of time would hurt, and a long-term absence would be a major blow to the team’s playoff hopes. By now, we’re all familiar with the cliché of the team telling reporters that an injury is minor, only keep pushing their return date further and further into the future. There’s also the matter of the future. In the wake of his 2022 shoulder injury, it took a couple of years for Tatis's exit velocities to tick back up to his 2022 levels. He has never been anything less than great, but that put a serious limit on his ceiling. This year, he finally, finally looks like the player he used to be, and it would be devastating for him to take a step backward now. Even if Tatis can play through whatever happened on Tuesday night, if he can’t get off his A-swing, he won’t be the same player. For now, there’s not much to do besides hoping that the optimism the team has expressed for all three injuries isn’t misplaced.