Josh Hader Refused To Come Into Last Night's Game For A 4 Out Save Because The Padres Aren't In A Playoff Race

Yeah, it’s starting to make sense why this team has underachieved. The 2023 San Diego Padres will go down as one of the greatest fucking anomalies ever. They have had so much go right for them. Juan Soto has stayed healthy the whole year, Fernando Tatís has been a Gold Glove-caliber right fielder, Blake Snell’s about to win the Cy Young, and yet this team will finish below .500. The 0–12 record that this team has in extra innings is a large reason for their underachieving. Still, there have been reports over the last year about how there’s a lot of tension inside that clubhouse. Things got even more tumultuous last night. Josh Hader has been the least of the Padres' problems. He has been fantastic this year in a contract season. He's one of the best closers in the entire sport. With that said, come on, man.

I'm usually pretty pro player regarding this kind of stuff. Pitching injuries are more prevalent than they've ever been, so I do understand a pitcher not wanting to push themselves to the edge when they're this close to the finish line, but in this case, you have to read the room. I understand the season hasn't gone the way that the San Diego Padres wanted it to. But we aren't talking about a pitcher who's 100 pitches into his outing being asked to pitch the eighth inning. We're talking about a grand total of what, five more pitches? Hader is a strikeout machine. He could've finished the guy off without breaking a sweat and pitched the next inning.

You can tell Bob Melvin is tired of this bullshit. The Padres would lose this game 2–1 to the San Francisco Giants. Logan Webb threw a complete game. 

Webb's complete game kind of rubs salt into the wound of this Josh Hader situation. Webb leads all of baseball with 216 innings pitched this season, and he threw a season-high 110 pitches last night. He never asked to come out of the game, even though the Giants are about to be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. 

Hader will get a big ole bag thrown at him and make a lot of money this off-season. I would definitely take him as my closer, but it's safe to say that as talented as that Padres roster is, the core has been rotten from the start in many ways.