PEORIA, Ariz. — All season, they protested. It wasn't too much, they said.
Every team's relievers have to pitch a lot. This is why they play. They loved it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not that the Padres' relief pitchers were being untruthful. It was just that their sense of duty kept them from saying what a little time and perspective allowed.
"At the time, it was a little hard," Pierce Johnson said earlier this spring. "But honestly, every one of us, we answered the call. Not one person was like, 'I can't do it.' When somebody needed their rest, we picked him up. I thought that was really cool because we stayed fairly healthy for the amount of innings we threw. And the way that everybody just picked each other up was kind of awesome."
Much of the time, in a way, it was very much that.
But there is a reason the Padres added Sean Manaea to the starting rotation Sunday and continue to seek relievers in the trade market.
They don't want the bullpen to have that kind of fun again.
There is no denying that, in the end, the Padres' bullpen having to throw 688 1/3 innings in 2021 contributed mightily to a decline in performance. Moreover, the relievers having to throw a bunch of those innings in two different spurts — one a month long early in the season and another for two weeks in August — was essentially the end of them.
That usage wasn't planned. The composition of the bullpen, with a number of one-inning options, was not one that suggested the Padres were at all OK with their starters throwing the second-fewest innings and their bullpen the second most of any team in the major leagues.
Four of the bullpen's core relievers threw more innings than they ever had in the majors. Five of them appeared in more games. Virtually all of them threw far more innings and games than they had in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.
"Nobody was complaining," Emilio Pagàn said. "That's what you sign up for when you're in a big-league bullpen. Sometimes you have to eat more innings than you expect. But when you're asked to eat that many, obviously it's tough."
And it creates a virtual inevitability.
"There were months we were a very dominant group," Pagàn said. "Everybody was throwing the ball well. Then there were times everyone was struggling — or (just) one or two guys were throwing well, but that can't win you games or series."
For almost all of the first 4 1/2 months of last season, the Padres by many measures had the best bullpen in the majors. Their relievers' collective ERA (2.96) was the lowest, their inherited runners scored percentage (25.5) was second lowest, their batting average allowed (.225) was fifth lowest and their WHIP (1.20) was fourth lowest.
And then …
From Aug. 17 to the end of the season, a span of 39 games for the Padres, they ranked fourth-from-the-bottom in ERA (5.47), had the highest percentage of inherited runners scored (50.7), ranked seventh worst in average allowed (.249) and had the 10th-highest WHIP (1.36).
"I think part of the reason we looked so bad in the end is we were so good at the beginning," Craig Stammen said. "If we'd have been mediocre the whole time, nobody would say anything. We were on top of the mountain, and we fell off."
Really, it was surprising it took as long as it did for them to slide.
By Aug. 9, Austin Adams had already thrown 1 1/2 times more innings than he ever had in the majors. Nabil Crismatt had appeared in three times as many games and thrown almost seven times as many innings as he had as a major leaguer. Tim Hill was about five innings away from his career high. Stammen had already thrown multiple innings in 14 games, more than in any season since 2017.
And there were 47 games to play, with a rapidly devolving starting rotation.
"We did our best to manage it," Stammen said. "In the end, we had so many starting pitcher injuries at the end, and it just didn't work out."
Stammen, at least, had in previous seasons thrown in more games and more innings than he did in '21. Guys like Adams and Crismatt and even Johnson had not been through anything like what they endured last season.
"That was their first time hitting those thresholds," Stammen said.
The way last season transpired was simply a lot.
The first big ask of Stammen came 10 games into the season when starter Adrian Morejón departed after recording just two outs with what would end up being a torn UCL that required Tommy John surgery. That day, April 11, in Texas was the first of three times Stammen went three or more innings, something he hadn't done even once the previous three seasons.
It was also the first of 24 games in which Padres relievers would pitch at least seven innings and the first of 32 games they would pitch at least six innings in 2021.
The bullpen averaged 4 2/3 innings per game from April 11 through May 11. It got worse, if for a shorter period, later in the season, when the average was more than 5 1/3 innings over 14 games from Aug. 10 through 25.
"It was, like, a hang-in-there type of thing," Hill said of those stretches.
Joe Musgrove was the only Padres starter to not land on the injured list. By season's end, Vince Velasquez and Jake Arrieta were in the rotation. The Padres relied on the bullpen to get through the entirety of six of their first 20 games in August, including four of 10 from Aug. 15 to 24.
"You try to stay away from the spurts of really aggressive activity," Pagàn said. "That's what they try to avoid to keep people healthy."
Due to a short spring training following the lockout, teams get to start this season with two extra roster spots, which includes an unlimited number of pitchers. After May 1, rosters decrease to 26 players and teams can have a maximum of 13 pitchers.
There are a number of questions about the Padres' bullpen in 2021. Truth be told, bullpens are the hardest faction of a team to predict. The nature of the job makes it so. Workloads and circumstances can vary widely. Relievers in the same bullpens tend to go through the same cycles, many of them hot at the same time and cold at the same time.
The Padres have strengthened the numbers of starting pitchers and added enough quality in the bullpen to make it the most intense competition in camp. There was apparent good news Monday, as Luis Garcia pitched to batters after having not done so since March 21 due to an oblique injury.
The Padres expect left-hander José Castillo and righty Michael Bàez back from Tommy John surgery perhaps as early as June. Drew Pomeranz (flexor tendon) could also return early in the summer.
"I think it's been a priority for the front office to get more pitching depth in here," Pagàn said. "I think we're in a good spot."
