San Diego Padres fans have learned the hard way that \u201cpitching depth\u201d isn\u2019t a buzzword you toss around in February. It\u2019s the whole season. And it can be the difference between surviving a rough stretch and watching your bullpen melt into soup by mid-June. So when a former top prospect like Carson Montgomery pops back up on the mound healthy, it matters, even if it\u2019s happening in the Arizona Fall League and not under the Petco Park lights.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a \u201che\u2019s back to help instantly\u201d comeback story. It\u2019s a \u201che\u2019s back and alive\u201d kind of story \u2014 and honestly, sometimes that\u2019s the best news you can get after 18 months without any real in-game reps. That kind of gap is basically an eternity for a pitcher. Plenty of time to refine, revamp, and tinker\u2026 and also plenty of time to feel like a human pitching lab experiment who may not ever get any real reps again.<\/p>\n
Padres pitching depth gets more interesting with Carson Montgomery back in action<\/p>\n
In the AFL, Montgomery\u2019s been leaning sinker\/slider heavy against righties, <\/a>then sprinkling in the changeup to keep lefties honest. The stat line looks like what you\u2019d expect from a guy shaking rust off and testing his edges \u2014 1.74 ERA (solid), seven strikeouts in 10 1\/3 innings, but also seven walks and 11 hits allowed. The command isn\u2019t fully ironed out yet, and hitters got some contact\u2026 which is fine. The point isn\u2019t perfection. The point is that he came out of it healthy.<\/a><\/p>\n And one of the coolest parts? The scouting report isn\u2019t just coming from some clipboard in the stands \u2014 it\u2019s coming from Enrique Bradfield Jr., who\u2019s basically had a front-row seat to Montgomery\u2019s return while they\u2019ve been reunited in Peoria. Bradfield\u2019s review is the kind Padres fans should latch onto:<\/p>\n Montgomery has \u201cthe ability to get on the mound and pump some good fuel,\u201d and Bradfield notes the secondaries have gotten better, he\u2019s filling up the zone, getting swing-and-miss, and letting the defense work behind him.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not nothing. That\u2019s the outline of a guy who can re-enter the organization\u2019s pitching conversation \u2014 whether that becomes rotation depth, a multi-inning bridge option, or just the kind of \u201cbreak glass in case of emergency\u201d arm contenders always need.<\/p>\n Is Montgomery a sure thing? Not at all.<\/a> But the Padres don\u2019t need him to be a sure thing right now. They need him to be another door the staff can open. And if you\u2019re building a pitching staff<\/a> for the long haul, a healthy arm with improved secondaries is the kind of quiet boost that can turn into a very loud payoff later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Padres fans have learned the hard way that \u201cpitching depth\u201d isn\u2019t a buzzword you toss around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-384184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}