Padres 23-year-old right-handed rookie Chris Paddack picked up his first big-league win on Wednesday with a dominant outing against Felix Hernandez and the Mariners (SD 1, SEA 0):
Of Paddack's 83 pitches, 59 went for strikes. And that was against what's been the best offense in the American League. Paddack has been at least good in all five of his starts this season, and his ERA now stands at 1.67 for the year. He's backed that up by allowing just 10 hits in 27 innings (!) and striking out 30.3 percent of opposing batters, which is an excellent figure, especially for a starting pitcher. Now for some relevant moving pictures:
First, note the strong, strong, strong stirrups game on Paddack's part. Anyhow, Paddack probably isn't going to sustain a sub-2.00 ERA moving forward, but all of that underlying dominance bodes well. What also bodes well is that Paddack has upside. Acquired from the Marlins back in the summer of 2016 for Fernando Rodney, Paddack, a former eighth-rounder, had been dominant in the lower rungs and kept it up on the farm with the Padres. Coming into this season, he was a consensus top-40 overall prospect.
Paddack has good velocity on his fastball, and he pairs with a change with good drop and velo separation, and a slow curve. That's a nice pitch when it comes to keeping hitters off balance and neutralizing the opposite side. On that front, Paddack against the Mariners on Wednesday got an impressive seven swings and misses on his changeup. He's looked and performed like a guy who's going to be able to get outs at the big-league level for a long time.
That, of course, is precisely what the Padres need. If they're going to contend in this, Manny Machado's first season in San Diego, then the rotation will be critical. Coming into the season, it looked like a potential weak spot. Yes, the Padres have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to young, high-upside pitching, but it's entirely reasonable to expect a learning curve. That certainly hasn't been the case thus far, though, as the Padres rank third in the NL with a rotation ERA of 3.41. Paddack, of course, is doing much of the work in that number. Don't be surprised if he continues to do the heavy lifting in the Padres' rotation for years to come.
