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San Diego's Jake Cronenworth Delivers Clutch HR Amidst Trying Season
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- San Diego's Jake Cronenworth Delivers Clutch HR Amidst Trying Season
(Denis Poroy - Imagn Images)
San Diego Padres' second baseman Jake Cronenworth's mind wasn't right. According to whom? No less an authority than his wife, Brooke Fletcher.
"I was talking to him and he had this glazed-over look on his face, and just something felt off," Fletcher said in a recent report by Jon Greenberg of The Athletic .
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Though by no means a doctor, Fletcher is an on-field reporter for the Chicago White Sox and Big Ten Football games, so she has seen injuries up close - and she also knows her husband.
"I was like, 'I think you need to get checked out again,'" she continued. "And I know he had been kind of thinking about it, but I'm glad he finally did it."
On April 18, Cronenworth was hit in the face by a pitch from the Los Angeles Angels' Yusei Kikuchi. Though he would pass initial concussion tests and stay in the game before playing in 12 of the Padres' next 13 contests, Fletcher began to notice that he seemed a little "standoffish" during their daily video chats.
When the doctors took a second look, they did determine that Cronenworth had indeed suffered a concussion when Kikuchi's pitch hit him in the jaw, which landed him on the IL on May 5 for a stay that would last 55 days and cover 49 games.
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To be honest, Cronenworth wasn't having a typical Cronenworth season even before the debilitating HBP. Acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in a December 2019 trade, Cronenworth debuted with San Diego in 2020 and has been a constant in the lineup for the seven seasons since then, appearing in 127 or more games every year, outside of the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign.
A true baseball "grinder," Cronenworth may not be the most physically gifted player, but he uses grit, hustle and a high baseball IQ to consistently get big hits and make big plays while playing all four infield positions and hitting anywhere in the lineup. Those capabilities earned him All-Star Game nods in 2021 and 2022 after he had finished tied for second in NL Rookie of the Year balloting in 2020.
However, when he went on the IL, he was hitting just .144 with three extra-base hits for a .468 OPS. When he returned after the eight-week IL stint, he started 0-for-4, but then something clicked on July 1. Over the next three games, Cronenworth was 6-for-12 as his average began a steady climb, crossing the Mendoza Line for good on July 22.
His late-season surge crescendoed the week of Sept. 14-20 when he went 13-for-28 (.464 average) to earn NL Player of the Week honors.
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That hot streak also helped spur the Padres' red-hot finish to the regular season as they zoomed into the NL's top wild-card spot to set up a meeting with the Chicago Cubs in the NL Wild Card round.
Cronenworth went 1-for 6 as the Padres swept the Cubs, but then started 0-for-7 as San Diego dropped the first two games of their best-of-five NL Divisional Series with the Milwaukee Brewers.
With the Padres facing elimination in Game 3 on Tuesday night, the left-handed Cronenworth stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the fifth with the score tied 2-2. He ambushed Milwaukee left-handed reliever JoJo Romero's first pitch of the inning, lofting it 368 feet and just over the rightfield wall to give the Padres a 3-2 lead. They would never trail again in an eventual 4-3 win that sets up another win-or-go-home contest on Wednesday night at Petco Park (7 p.m. PT on FS1).
"It's hard to describe, but it's one of those things that just when it happens, you get excited," Cronenworth said about his go-ahead homer , as reported by Cole Bradley on MLB.com. "I don't know what else to say."
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The win also sets up an interesting day for Cronenworth and his wife, as the Padres will try to stay alive against the Brewers a few hours after Fletcher will be on hand in Chicago as the White Sox attempt to complete a three-game sweep of the Cleveland Guardians in an AL Divisional Series.
It also means the dream of a Padres-White Sox World Series remains alive for at least one more day.
"People are blowing up my social media, like, 'OK, so who are you gonna root for in the White Sox-Padres World Series?'" Fletcher said in The Athletic report. "I don't want to stress about any of that right now. We're just enjoying the ride at the moment."
