May 2, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; San Diego Padres shortstop Everth Cabrera (2) hits an RBI single during the eighth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: Reid Compton-USA TODAY Sports

After losing the first game of the four game series at Wrigley Field against the Cubs on Monday night, the Padres managed to take two of the final three games to earn a split. The Padres now head back home to face the Arizona Diamondbacks for the first time all season, followed by a three game series against the Miami Marlins.

Some observations from the series with the Cubs.

Too many strikeouts

During the four games in Chicago, we saw flashes of both the old Padres offense that struggles to score runs at times, and also a glimpse of what the offense is capable of when they are able to string some hits together. While the offense is certainly improved from past Padre teams, they still strike out too much. And it’s not just the sheer number of strikeouts (although that can certainly be improved), it’s when they occur. I alluded to this in my post from Monday, but the Padres are in the lower tier of the league with runners left on base. Much of that comes from swinging and missing at inopportune moments. During the four games against the Cubs, the Padres were rung up 38 times. I watched all four games pretty intently; I cannot tell you how many times the Padres had a chance to drive in a run or, at the very least, extend an inning, and the guy at-bat struck out. They need to improve on getting the ball in play, and putting more pressure on the defense.

A perfect example of this happened earlier today in the series finale, and it sparked the big 8th inning rally. Yonder Alonso popped a ball up to shallow right field.  From there, the Chicago wind took over, making a routine inning-ending play an adventure in the outfield. The ball dropped in, a run scored, and the rest of the two-out rally is history. Put the ball in play, and good things will happen.

Ex-Padres continue to burn SD

One of the big storylines coming into this series was Anthony Rizzo going up against the Padres. The Padres received Rizzo from Boston in the Adrian Gonzalez trade, and then proceeded to flip him to the Cubs after getting Yonder Alonso in the Mat Latos deal. While Rizzo was held relatively in-check during the series (4 for 12 with only one RBI), Padre fans can’t feel too good about seeing his 8 HRs and 20 RBIs in the month of April alone, while Andrew Cashner, the fire-ball pitcher the Padres received for Rizzo, still floats between the rotation and the bullpen and is struggling to find an exact role on the team.

In addition to Rizzo, Cody Ransom, who the Padres let go just two weeks ago, seemed to make big play after big play in this series, particularly on Monday night, when he hit a huge home run and made a key defensive play at third late in the game. Scott Hairston, who spent several years in a Padre uniform in the late 2000′s, hit two homers in the series, including what looked to be the game-winning home run in Thursday afternoon’s contest, until the Padres scrapped and clawed for four runs in the 8th inning to take the lead for good.

Cashner’s first start was sub-par

To say the least. He looked terrible on Wednesday night. Probably a little over-amped to face his former team, he only lasted 4 innings, giving up 5 runs, 6 hits and 4 walks. Cashner had zero command of his pitches, as he looked uncomfortable on the mound virtually the entire 4 innings of work. It looks like Cashner’s spot in the rotation is set for now, which will hopefully allow him to relax his next time out against Miami. With a Stanton-less Marlins squad back at the friendly confines of Petco Park, I’m willing to bet Cashner throws a gem on Monday.

Quick hits

It was good to see Jedd Gyorko get off the schnide and hit his first home run as a big-leaguer. I think you will see a different Gyorko for the rest of the year than we saw in April.

What is wrong with Clayton Richard? A few more bad starts and he could find himself out of the rotation.

Everth Cabrera is the most productive player on the team right now. He is playing very solid defense and he’s getting on base.

I’ll have more to say on the Chase Headley extension talks in my next post or two, but I am cautiously optimistic that they will get a long term deal done before the trade deadline.

Apr 29, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; San Diego Padres first baseman Yonder Alonso (left) reacts after being called out on strikes with the bases loaded by home plate umpire Mark Carlson during the seventh inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

The Padres were finally getting things going, winners of four straight games and coming off a three-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants.

With the Rockies coming back to the pack in the division, the Padres found themselves just 5.5 games out of first place starting a four game set at Wrigley Field versus the lowly Cubs.

But things that have plagued the Padres all year long once again came back to bite them in this one. The Padres are ranked in the bottom third in all of MLB is runners left-on-base per game, and Monday night was no exception. They left 11 guys on the base paths and had a plethora of opportunities to drive in either game tying or go-ahead runs. They also struck out 14 times.

After a rare two out, two-run single in the 5th inning by Yonder Alonso to tie the game at three, the Padres found themselves down 5-3 in the top of the 7th inning. With the bases loaded and only one out, Alonso proceeded to strike out, followed up by a weak groundout by Jedd Gyorko. Gyorko had an outstanding spring, but has yet to find his groove during the first month of the season.

Then, in the 8th inning, the Padres had the tying run on second base after a quick 2-out rally. However, Chris Denorfia grounded out measly to the pitcher Kevin Gregg.

Another story line in this game was Cody Ransom. Released by the Padres just a couple weeks ago, Ransom seemed to take it personally, as he homered in the 2nd inning and had a big 2-out RBI single to put the Cubs ahead for good in the 6th inning. He also made a great play at third to save a run with 2 outs in the 7th inning on Gyorko’s slow grounder.

The Padres were gaining some momentum heading into May, but if they hope to stay competitive in the NL West, they can’t be losing series to teams like the Cubs. Luckily, they have three more cracks at Chicago this week and hopefully they can grab three of four.

Nick Hundley has received more playing time in Yasmani Grandal’s absence. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

With Headley sidelined in addition to his backup Logan Forsythe, the Padres have been forced to use Alexi Amarista and Cody Ransom in their places in the field and in the lineup.  I mentioned last week how both players would be counted on to lessen the blow of Headley’s absence, but so far both players have yet to find their offensive groove.  In fact, both players are struggling to even make solid contact.

Ransom has already started the year 0 for 6 with 3 strikeouts, while Amarista has only gone 2 for 18 with 1 RBI.  For those of you playing the “home game,” both guys are hitting a combined .083 over the season’s first week, have logged a combined .083 on-base percentage, and have only driven in one run while the 2012 NL RBI leader has been sidelined.  I certainly did not believe that they would be able to replace Headley in the aggregate from an offensive perspective, but his replacements have not been able to produce runs or reach base with any sort of consistency so far this year.

Grandal’s main replacement Nick Hundley has not fared much better than Amarista and Ransom either.  After a dreadful 2012 season which saw the veteran catcher lose his starting job, get injured, and play poorly, 2013 was supposed to be Hundley’s fresh start.  Unfortunately, Nick’s struggles have continued at the plate.  So far, Hundley has hit only .133 (2 for 15), driven in 1 run, recorded only 1 extra-base hit, and logged a 6 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio.  If the back-stop’s issues at the plate continue, the team might be forced to play veteran John Baker (3 for 8) more often in his place until Grandal returns.

This post however is not my attempt to place the entirety of the team’s offensive woes on Headley’s and Grandal’s replacements.  Others on the team have struggled so far as well, and there have even been some in the lineup who have shined on occasion like Chris Denorfia, Carlos Quentin, and even the ageless Mark Kotsay.  Nevertheless, without their #3 and #5 hitters, the Friars’ offense has been treading water to start the 2013 campaign.  The team as a whole has only scored 4 runs once this year, have scored a total of 14 runs in 6 games, have only held two leads over the entire season, and are hitting a collective .204.  While I am not saying that Headley and Grandal would not have struggled to begin this year, I doubt that they would be hovering around the .100 mark in terms of their batting averages.

Hopefully this team will either improve over the coming weeks enough to make due without two of their three best hitters, or the starting staff can get their stuff together (6.45 ERA right now) to keep the team in some games until Headley and Grandal can come back to the lineup.  I hate to be a “Negative Nancy,” but if this team struggles collectively to hit and are hovering at 20 below .500 by June again this year, then they can kiss any sort of postseason berth goodbye.

Stats Courtesy of: Baseball Reference