The 5 biggest concerns for the struggling Padres

Cut to the end of May, and the Padres are 21-24. That’s a .467 winning percentage. Let’s check in with the Padres of the last three years and see where that would rank.

2014: .475
2013: .469
2012: .469

How can ... why ... this can’t possibly be the same Padres team. By definition. Everyone’s different, dang it. How can they be the same Padres?

They aren’t, really. More dingers are leaving for both the pitchers and hitters. The old strengths are the new weaknesses, and the new weaknesses are the old strengths, but somehow they ended up in the same place. The good news is that it’s still May, with plenty of time to un-Padres and fulfill that preseason vision of great glory and victorious spirit. Here are the five biggest worries for the Padres until then, ranked from least worrisome to most.

In general, don’t spend too much time worrying about closers unless a) they were fringe dudes to begin with and there’s a better option already in-house, or b) you’re talking about a team that can win 85 games just as easily as 90, which means every win is desperately needed. The Padres fall into that latter category.

They certainly don’t fall into the former category, as Kimbrel has been one of the best relievers in history over a three-year span. All of the typical indicators are positive. He’s throwing just as hard, if not a little harder, and it’s just as hard to make contact against him as ever. He’s allowed a .371 batting average on balls in play, which isn’t always the “A-HA!” moment that we used to think it was, but it’s still a useful way to point out what’s different from last year, and it can still indicate bad luck instead of bad pitching.

Really, though, we’re talking about 15 innings. Maybe Kimbrel was awful for two of those. Maybe he was sick or achy or unlucky or thinking about the end of Mad Men or just off. And maybe he was off in a way that has no predictive value. That’s the likeliest scenario. The alternative is believing that these seven run-allowing outings are indicative of a brand-new Kimbrel, which kind of feels like writing off a hitter after a bad two weeks.

The Padres have bigger worries, and Kimbrel will be fine.

The first one we can wave away with a snarky self-assuredness because we know that pitcher losses mean nothing. The Padres have scored five runs combined in Cashner’s last six outings, so of course they’ve lost. Five of those six outings were quality starts, and Cashner is pitching just as well as he always has. If there’s any room for concern, it’s that it’s regularly taking him over 100 pitches to get out of the sixth inning, but that’s just a quibble at this point. He’s probably the same pitcher as last year, just healthier.

Cashner has already allowed more homers than he did last year, but in almost 70 fewer innings. That would be something to make a bigger deal about if Shields hadn’t allowed 15 homers in just 62⅓ innings, putting him on a record-setting pace. He’s been through this before, in his lost season of 2010, in which he led the American League in homers, hits and earned runs, so it’s not as simple as assuming the home runs will stabilize and everything will return to normal. He’s done this for a full season before. It doesn’t have to stop because we say so.

But remember, we’re talking about Petco Park, the modern Astrodome where homers go to die and end up roaming around undead, scaring other would-be homers away. There were changes to the dimensions in the offseason, but they were slight.

The Padres are embarking on a left-field renovation plan that will include the addition of the third-largest video board in baseball ... Other changes to left field will include the removal of the last nine rows of seats in the second deck (610 seats), directly under the scoreboard.

... The fence will come in only 34 inches.

It’s possible that the butterfly effect of the scoreboard has turned Petco into Great American Ballpark, with jet streams and dinger-aiding gusts everywhere. It’s more likely, though, that this is a two-month blip. The Padres would be right to look elsewhere at their bigger problems. Such as ...

The solution is simple: either promote some of the top minor-league pitchers or trade some prospects away for new starting pitchers. Except the Padres traded most of their pitching depth, and they traded most of their prospects. It’s not an impossible team to reinforce, but their activity in the offseason made their position a little more complicated than the typical team. They can wait on Morrow (who’s close to pitching in a simulated game) and count on Kennedy to improve. The odds are, though, that they’ll need at least one more starting pitcher.

Except, if the Padres also need a starting pitcher, they’re going to have to spread those prospects mighty thin. They’ll probably have to ride one of those positions out, hoping that everyone gets healthy along the way.

This spot was originally reserved for the historically wretched defense, which is something almost everyone saw coming. But the defense is included with the pitching concerns up there. And it’s not like the bad defenders are knocking the balls over the fence, Canseco-style.

Which is a problem. Because when he’s at his worst, Kemp might be one of the most unplayable players in baseball. The defense is a known issue, to put it gently, so if he’s not hitting for power or average or getting on base, it’s hard to justify his lineup existence.

Still, the concerns are real, and the sparkling new-look Padres have spent the first seven weeks of the season reminding us that baseball is hard. That wasn’t exactly the plan.