With Padres placing premium on defense, Martín Maldonado could stick behind plate
PEORIA, Ariz. — It was one of the more beautiful plays that will never show up in a box score in a spring training game.
And that might seem like nothing, except that it may have provided a glimpse of what sort of thing will figure into the decision making when the Padres choose their catchers at the end of camp.
In the second inning of a game against the Mariners on Feb. 28, with runners on second and third and two outs, catcher Martín Maldonado saw the giant lead Samad Taylor had taken off second base. The veteran catcher nonchalantly nodded toward second baseman Jake Cronenworth and then called a “pitch-up” on the next pitch, received the ball and fired a throw to exactly where it needed to be — low and directly to the side of the bag.
Cronenworth caught the ball on one hop and applied the tag maybe a half-second too late. Taylor’s lead thereafter was two steps closer to second base.
“I remember how a manager told me once,” Maldonado said a few days later, “‘You don’t pick to get the guy out, you pick to shorten the secondary lead.’”
