The 2016 San Diego Padres are not a very good baseball team. Just ask one of the guys in charge.
Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler eviscerated his team Wednesday in a local radio interview, calling them a bunch of “miserable failures” after they lost 16-4 to the Seattle Mariners to wrap up a 1-7 road trip.
“It’s been embarrassing. I don’t know how else to put it,” Fowler told Mighty 1090 AM, as transcribed by FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. “Our performance on the road trip, 1-7, was pathetic.
“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.”
The Padres exec was particularly hard on pitcher James Shields, who gave up 10 earned runs in just 2 2/3 innings in the lopsided loss to the Mariners.
“To have a starter like Shields perform as poorly as he did (Tuesday) is an embarrassment to the team, an embarrassment to him,” Fowler said.
“It’s about as frustrating as it can get. In a normal environment, if you had performed as well as we have over the last three years, you’d probably be unemployed. But it’s baseball, with guaranteed contracts. We’ve got to get through it.”
Shields isn’t living up to the four-year, $75 million contract San Diego gave him last February, but he hasn’t been as bad this season as his 2-7 record would indicate. The 34-year-old right-hander has allowed two earned runs or fewer in six of his 11 starts and three in two others, and he’d gone at least six innings in every outing before Tuesday.
The team as a whole, though? Yeah, they’re bad.
San Diego exacted revenge Wednesday on Seattle by smoking the M’s 14-6 but still entered Thursday 11 1/2 games out of first place in the National League West. Only the Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins have worse winning percentages this season than the 21-33 Padres.
Thumbnail photo via Jake Roth/USA TODAY Sports Images
