“Not Enough Tenacity” – NBC 7 San Diego

Padres manager Bob Melvin is one of the most patient, even-keel people in baseball. So, when he’s had enough, you KNOW it’s because he’s reached his tipping point.

It appears that happened on Thursday afternoon in Minnesota.

The Friars suffered another setback, this time a 5-3 loss to the Twins where they had the chance to score a whole lot more runs than they did. San Diego went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, further cementing their offense as the worst in the league in that very important category.

Melvin knows that’s simply not good enough for anyone, let along a lineup with as much talent as the Padres run out every night.

"We have guys who can perform better. We're going to but it's time to quit just talking about it, it's time to go out there and do it," says Melvin. "Another frustrating game for us. Underperformed."

Everyone knows the problem. The tricky part is figuring out how to fix it. Melvin seems to think the solution is well within their grasp.

“You’ve just got to fight a little harder and expect a little more of ourselves, all of us. Myself included,” says Melvin. “We have not done that to this point. These stretches happen but it’s gone on too long. We’ve got to break through here at some point.”

Perhaps the best way to break through is to simply start swing the bats more. I know, it sounds wildly simplistic but sometimes the most obvious idea is the best one and the manager would very much like to see his guys being more aggressive.

“I just don’t think there’s enough tenacity throughout the course of a game. We show signs of it, we show spurts of it, we come out like we should and then we don’t sustain it for the entire game. That’s the problem,” says Melvin.

I wonder if the skipper even realizes how right he is.

According to data from Baseball Savant, the Padres have the 4^th-lowest overall swing percentage in the game. However, more alarmingly, they have the lowest zone percentage in Major League Baseball. Padres hitters are only swinging at strikes 63.4% of the time, meaning they’re watching more hittable pitches than anyone else.

What’s really frustrating is when they are swinging aggressively good things tend to happen.

Let’s look back at the Padres’ 5-2, extra-inning loss to the Dodgers on Sunday night. In the 1^st inning, all six batters swung at the first pitch in the strike zone. They had three doubles and scored two runs. The rest of the game, a total of 33 plate appearances, Padres batters attacked the first strike 12 times.

San Diego had no more extra-base hits and did not score again.

Of those 12 swings, three came from Tatis Jr., who hit the ball hard a couple of times but right at L.A. defenders. In fact, Tatis Jr. has been the outlier on this roster. He swings at 86.5% of the pitches he sees in the strike zone. It’s probably not coincidental that he’s leading the club in batting average and slugging percentage and is just one away from the team home lead despite playing half the number of games his teammates have.

Now, I know some strikes are better than others. You’re not doing yourself any favors going after a slider placed perfectly on the outside corner on the first pitch. But, every now and then just getting the bat off your shoulder more often can change a mindset.

In a nutshell: the Padres offense needs to get more offensive.

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