WASHINGTON — The math simply does not add up for the Padres’ pitching rotation right now.
No matter how many hitters Dylan Cease fans. No matter the brilliance Michael King flashes. No matter how much Matt Waldron’s knuckleball dances.
Asking three men, in essence, to gobble up the ground that is needed from now through the end of September is sort of like asking three guys with silky jump shots to hold off a plucky bunch from the YMCA.
At some point, you’re out-gunned.
That’s what made Randy Vásquez’s Tuesday start against the Nationals such compelling theater for the Padres. They desperately need three bankable arms to grow into four.
Vasquez gave them another quality start — six shutout innings, four hits, one strikeout, no walks — as the Padres beat the Nationals 4-0 at Nationals Park. It’s more timely salve for a group scrambling to overcome the losses of anchors Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove.
“The confidence has been growing (in Vásquez),” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “He’s pitched really well. He continues to improve. Tonight was a very exceptional outing for him, getting into the seventh.
” … He more than did his job.”
The Padres had been other-worldly across the last three starts with King, Cease and Waldron combining to allow two earned runs with 21 strikeouts and two walks across 20 innings.
The ERA in that stretch: 0.90.
When you lasso in the two starts before that, another by Cease and Vásquez’s previous trip to the mound, it was still just four earned runs with 37 strikeouts and six walks bridging 31 innings (1.16 ERA).
Those numbers are not sustainable, of course, but the group has held the line, offered the bullpen an extended breather and positioned the team to win with regularity.
If reinforcements in the form of Vásquez and the nearing trade deadline arrive, the timing of the run the front-line arms are on has been Swiss watch-perfect.
No Musgrove or Darvish? Survive and advance.
“I was very impressed by us, but it was also not unexpected,” King said. “It’s obviously a hard thing to lose your big dogs, but I felt like we all had the capability to perform.
“We’re proving to not only ourselves and the team, but also other teams, that we still have a very good rotation. If we get our big dogs back or anybody else, it could be a very, very dangerous rotation.”
That’s the crux of this thing: What if?
What if Musgrove comes back and pitches closer to the Musgrove of old? What if a new arm is gift-wrapped in brown and gold by the deadline?
What if neither of those things happen and the innings odometer chews up the short list of legitimate starters they have left? That’s the what-if that slams the window shut.
“I don’t think any team can go through a season expecting five guys to get you through,” Padres catcher Kyle Higashioka said. “You have to have depth.”
So, the search continues.
What makes the Padres confident that can be Vásquez, who — despite Tuesday’s gem — entered the game with a 4.57 ERA and nerves-inducing 1.556 rate for walks and hits per inning pitched?
For one, pitching coach Ruben Niebla.
Considered one of the best in baseball, Niebla owns a reputation for fixing things that most considered too broken to salvage. Under Niebla, what you are in May may not be what you become by August.
“Somebody else has to step up and it’s an opportunity for that person,” Niebla said. “So that’s what we’re seeing with Vásquez. He’s responding to the opportunities. We need another one of these guys to do the same.”
The Padres are in the finding-a-way business right now. It’s slippery footing as seasons grow grayer, but there are not unlimited chess pieces in the pitching world — especially these days.
Stacking up starts can build something bigger.
“One-hundred percent,” King said. “Cease’s line is, ‘I’ve got them on their back. You’ve just got to rub their tummy.’ Basically saying now it’s up to me to continue to put the foot on the throat.”
Vásquez was Tuesday’s foot.
“I do feel I can fill one of those spots in the rotation,” he said. “The results speak for themselves. It’s a role I’m willing to take on. I feel the responsibility to my teammates and my team.”
” … I definitely feel like I can help the team win.”
Waldron said a long season is about evolving, no matter the cards the collective group is dealt.
“Ruben mentioned the importance of relying on the knuckleball,” he said. “I should go down with that pitch, throwing your best pitches. That has helped results-wise, understanding that is my best pitch right now. Why not get to learn it a little better?
“There’s a bit of stubborn in me that I want to be a little more conventional sometimes.”
The conventional math? It’s getting better by the day.
