Padres Spring Training Report – Feb. 22, 2014

Ok, no beating around the bush, the Padres suffered their first significant injury of the spring this morning when Chase Headley left the workout early with a strained right calf.  Less than 48 hours after you voted him and Carlos Quentin the two most important players the Padres need not to get hurt this year on a Hey-Scan Poll asking that question, it looks like he will now miss at least two weeks of spring.

It happened during the morning fundamental drill on rundown plays.  Chase was playing third base, and the play was to get the runner at home trying to score from 3rd.  The runner as instructed then got in a rundown, with Chase being involved in the rundown play.  The out was quickly recorded, and all seemed fine until as guys were going back to their positions Chase seemed to hobble a little after the play was finished.  At first it looked as though he may have accidentally rolled his ankle slightly as he walked on his right foot gingerly.  He took a couple of steps apparently trying to see if it would loosen up, but quickly realized whatever it was, it was not getting better and made his way gingerly into foul territory out of everyone’s way then sat down for a few seconds, and then began motioning for the trainers to come over.  Paul Navarro and Todd Hutchinson reached Chase in moments , and after a few minutes of Navarro testing Chase’s lower leg area they assisted him to the training room for further evaluation and treatment.

After practice Chase emerged from the training room on crutches and explained that the injury was to his right calf, but that he did not believe it to be serious.  Yes it would require him to miss a couple of weeks of practice, but it appeared to be only a muscular strain that should heal normally and completely.  He further explained that the crutches were simply to help take as much pressure off the calf as possible until he can walk on it again without significant pain.  He also suggested that there would be an MRI just to confirm no other deeper damage had occurred, and that test would likely take place on Monday.

As players made their way over to check on one of their key players and veteran leaders to see how he was doing, you know Chase had to be extremely disappointed at the circumstances, but was assuring all of them that he would be fine and back out there before too long.  I have to give him a ton of credit for keeping his composure, when no one would have blamed him for displaying the frustration that must have been welling inside.

So what is the bright side in all of this?  The timing.  It’s Feb. 22nd, with lots of spring training left before opening day.  If the strain truly is not too serious then it is reasonable to think he could possibly be back out there in 2-3 weeks, leaving a good two weeks of games to get at bats and reps at 3rd in before opening night against the Dodgers.  The only thing that Chase, and the Padres can do now is to wait and see what the MRI shows, and hope he heals up as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, practice went on, with the main attraction again being live batting practice.  After a fairly noisy day with the bats yesterday, there were a lot fewer cracks of the hickory hitting the horsehide today, and a lot more pops of the catchers mitt as many of todays hurlers were very sharp, and left few pitches up and over for the batters to get extended on.  While almost all the day’s pitchers looked fairly sharp there were two that seemed to be almost unhittable.  One was Nick Vincent who for the five minutes I watched did not allow a single ball to be put into play in fair territory.  Firm strike after firm strike at the knees and on the edges.  Guys just couldn’t put the ball in play off him.  The other was Kevin Quackenbush who also had very few balls put into play, and those that were trickled off the bats as easy grounders.  Good late sinking action on fastballs and split fingers down in the zone.  Impressive.  Benoit, and Boyer both showed off strong fastballs, and young Dennis O’Grady looked very sharp throwing not a pitch above the knees the entire 5 minutes I watched him.

Three young hitters that caught my eye today were Tommy Medica, Rymer Liriano, and Alex Dickerson.  Medica because twice he drove pretty good offerings away deep into the opposite field gap short hopping the wall.  He showed some of that raw oppo power during his brief big league stint last year, and there appears to be more where that came from.  Liriano for his part showed off his raw power on the first pitch he saw from Tim Stauffer, getting is arms extended on a FB up and out over and hitting it so high and far over the left field fence that I literally never saw where it landed.  It was a blast.  Now, in the next at bat Stauff worked him over pretty good going FB away, good breaking ball away, then painting him with another FB at the knees on the black to sit him down in 3 pitches.  Still, it was a tasty appetizer to see the power that Liriano does have, a good reminder of why he was such a high prospect before TJ surgery curtailed his season last year.  Hopefully he picks up where he left off.  As for Stauff it was good to see him turn it up a notch in that second at bat, and go to work.  Finally Alex Dickerson, who the Padres got from Pittsburgh in exchange for Jaff Decker and Miles Mikolas, has in my opinion shown good balance, swing , an pitch recognition early in camp. You can see why in his first three professional seasons he has a career .295 avg., 33 HR and 177 RBI, while being named Player of the Year of the FSL in 2012, and Rookie of the Year in the Eastern League last year.

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that Chase gets good news from the MRI on Monday, and heals up quickly so that he doesn’t have to miss any games at the start. And let’s also hope that this is the last injury of significance that we have to discuss here for a while.

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