Things are not going so well this season for the San Diego Padres, and the tension is starting to boil over.
After getting blown out 16-4 by the Seattle Mariners, Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler had plenty of grief regarding his team’s performance in a radio interview on Wednesday. He used words like “pathetic,” “frustrating,” and “embarrassing” on numerous counts during his interview with Mighty 1090 AM, capping it all by referring to the Padres as “miserable failures.”
“It’s been embarrassing. I don’t know how else to put it,” Fowler said, as noted by Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com. “I’m a very competitive individual. I think I’ve won a lot more than lost in my life. This baseball experience has been very frustrating, very embarrassing.”
Entering June, San Diego is already 12.5 games out of first place in the National League West Division with a record of 20-33, which also puts them way behind in the NL Wild Card picture. You know things are extremely frustrating though when the chairman starts naming names, like pitcher James Shields.
“To have a starter like (James) Shields perform as poorly as he did yesterday is an embarrassment to the team, an embarrassment to him,” Fowler said. And he was just warming up.
Fowler went so far as to suggest the players have responsibility for their performance on the field, but hinted the Padres may have brought in the wrong players. That is quite a comment to make from an active member in the front office.
“It’s on the player, but the organization has to accept responsibility for probably having the wrong players,” Fowler said. “We don’t have a team out there right now that is competing effectively. We’re doing everything we can going into the draft and looking at international signings to get some guys who can get us there.”
“But in terms of the manager and coaching staff, we’ve got as good a group or a better group than I’ve seen. They’re doing what they need to do. Part of it is on the players. But our job is to get the right players who can be motivated and determined at game time. Right now, we’re not doing it. That’s what frustrating for all of us.”
There is one thing to look forward to for the Padres. The team owns six of the top 85 picks in the upcoming amateur draft, which should help them build a new nucleus for the future…assuming the Padres pick the “right players.”
Then again, this is also a franchise that once wasted a draft pick on Johnny Manziel.
