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The Friars came off a hot series against the not-so-good Giants to face the not-doing-so-good Los Angeles Dodgers.
Getting the chance at his first start of the season after his slow bounce back from Tommy John and some innings of relief, Robbie Erlin was set to fill in a slot left empty by a suspended Luis Perdomo. Due to Erlin being out for the 2017 season there was no immediate data on Erlin’s glove-throwing mechanics in the case of benches-clearing at Petco Park tonight.
What was known was that his pitch count was going to stay low, and hopefully his ERA with it. Unfortunately, in 3 innings and 70 pitches, the Dodgers were able to rack up 6 runs through 6 hits, 4 earned off Erlin. Matt Kemp and his hair tagged Erlin for a 3 run homer in the top of the 3rd before the bullpen would come in to stabilize things.
An ugly 3rd inning was sparked by some gross Padres defense: a hard-hit liner to Hunter Renfroe that had him hopping and deflecting off his glove for a game-tying RBI, hitting in Chris Taylor who only reached due to an error from Christian Villanueva. In the 4th, Jose Pirela would tack on a 3rd error for the night on a routine pop fly.
Pirela's error also featured a 99 percent catch probability (though in reality, it probably should've been 100). Corey Seager has reached base in consecutive innings on baseballs that had a 1 percent chance of hitting the ground.
— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) April 17, 2018
To pile on, only Christian Villanueva aka NL Rookie of the Year aka we forgive you for that error but don’t let it happen again, would do any damage to Hyun-Jin Ryu all night - blasting a 2-run homer off a high-ish inside 87 MPH cutter.
Se nos está haciendo costumbre.
— MLB México (@MLB_Mexico) April 17, 2018
HR de 2 carreras de @Villa_at_3B para llegar a 6 en la temporada con 13 carreras impulsadas.#MexicanPower pic.twitter.com/DIVq9dMUgh
If you’re counting or have the video’s volume on, that’s his 6th homer of the season so far, homering in his last 3 games.
Other than Villanueva’s jack in the 2nd inning, only Franchy Cordero was able to plate Christian with an RBI single in the bottom of the 9th. By then, the Padres were playing in an 8-run deficit, after a Yasmani Grandal grand slam in the top of the inning.
Let’s just pretend this game didn’t happen and try to forget about it by the end of the season.