2023 Padres Season Review: Robert Suarez

2023 Regular Season Statistics

0 fWAR, 26 G, 27.2 IP, 4.23 ERA, 0.904 WHIP, 24 K, 10 BB, 4 HR, 0 HBP

Positives From This Season

Robert Suarez took a little bit of time to get back to being the guy we saw last year but he still earned 20 scoreless appearances in 2023. The velocity was still good and he looked closer-caliber especially when he came back from his suspension. Opponents hit .128 off of him in the month of September.

Negatives From This Season

Obviously the biggest disappointment was that he wasn’t available for the first 3.5 months of the season due to right elbow inflammation. The Padres bullpen was fine early on but then Suarez’s absence definitely became noticeable when San Diego was losing too many one-run games in the summer.

His absence made it more of a bummer when we saw later in the year that Suarez was able to pitch more than three outs because that means he could’ve been used in even more situations if he was healthy in the first half of the season.

The Padres missed out on the postseason by a couple of games so Suarez’s health was one of the many what ifs of their 2023 season.

The 32-year-old will be going into the second year of his five-year, $46 million contract in 2024.