I have been soliciting advice, trying to find the right word to explain the Padres offensive production through the first 24 games of the season.
Pathetic, embarrassing, toothless, impotent, awful, horrendous, terrible and worst of all time have been offered up. However, I think I found the proper adjective:
Unacceptable.
Scoring the fewest runs in all of Major League Baseball is unacceptable. Being shut out 12.5% of the time is unacceptable. It's especially unacceptable when the Padres have a top-5 pitching staff that's giving them ample opportunities to win games with just a few runs.
What is most unacceptable (and frustrating) is the guys in the lineup are better than how they're playing. Only two of the 8 position players who started Saturday's game finished it with a batting average above .200 (Everth Cabrera and Chris Denorfia).
San Diego was shut out for the third time in 2014 on Saturday afternoon, losing 4-0 to the Nationals in Washington, DC. The Friars have scored 12 runs in the first six games of their current road trip. Amazingly, they found some way to win two of them (both in 12 innings).
Nationals starting pitcher Tanner Roark threw the first complete-game shutout of his career. Not just his MLB career, his professional career. Roark retired the first 16 batters of the game, struck out eight and only allowed three hits (all singles).
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The Padres have scored once in their last 18 innings played.
Starter Andrew Cashner allowed four runs in six innings, but his defense made three errors behind him and missed a couple of other tough, yet makeable, plays that could have prevented the Nats from scoring.
On Sunday the Padres have what might be their best chance to jump-start their offense when they face Nationals RHP Taylor Jordan, who has struggled mightily of late. Over his last three starts, Jordan has allowed 14 runs in 15.1 innings.
The Padres counter with Ian Kennedy, who's allowed just four runs over 13 innings in his last two starts.
