ST. LOUIS — The Padres had to play sans their closer and their manager on Monday night.
The team expects to be without closer Mason Miller for at least the three games here against the Cardinals while he attends to a matter he requested be kept private.
“We’re gonna miss him,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said.
Stammen participated in pregame meetings, walked off the field a little more than an hour before the game and eventually ascended to the suite level at Busch Stadium.
He and pitcher Ron Marinaccio were suspended — Stammen for one game and Marinaccio for three — for what transpired Saturday in Baltimore. Marinaccio was determined by umpires to have intentionally hit Gunnar Henderson with a pitch in retaliation for Xander Bogaerts having been hit in the head by a pitch earlier in the game.
Both Marinaccio and Stammen declared afterward that the pitch was not intentional. Stammen was ejected Saturday for arguing with crew chief Chris Conroy after Marinaccio was tossed.
“No one wants to be suspended for something they don’t think they should be suspended for,” Stammen said Monday. “But it is what it is.”
The suspensions were essentially automatic, as was the fact that Marinaccio will appeal his suspension and remain on the active roster until a hearing or he drops the suspension.
The Padres, who called up left-hander Kyle Hart for cover while Miller is on the bereavement/family medical leave list, certainly cannot afford to be without another arm in the bullpen in the coming days.
With Miller’s absence and the recent workload of Jason Adam and Adrian Morejón, plus Jeremiah Estrada being on the injured list, the Padres’ bullpen appears something less than extraordinary at present.
It might not be as bad as ordinary. The Padres bullpen entered Monday’s game with the second-lowest ERA in the major leagues, and its depth is a big part of its strength.
“It’s the beauty of having a really good bullpen,” Stammen said. “We feel solid one through eight. We have (David) Morgan here and Hart, who have been in El Paso recently. It’s more like one through 10 or one through 12. And I feel good about any of those guys finishing the game tonight.”