Padres Catcher Christian Bethancourt Made The Most Of His Chance To Pitch

The Padres got walloped 16-4 this afternoon by the Mariners, and they lost the first two games of a weird home and away pair of two-game series on opposite ends of the (American) Pacific coast by an aggregate score of 25-7. It only took Seattle five innings to accrue all their runs, which ushered in some silly shit later in the contest. Christian Bethancourt started the game as catcher, and eventually got on the field as a left fielder and second baseman before Andy Green handed him the ball for the eighth and final inning. He did not disappoint.

There are two ways of looking at Bethancourt’s 0.2 IP: You could focus on the fact that he loaded up the bases by hitting Seth Smith and walking a pair of batters, or you could marvel at his range and velocity. He threw a 96-mph fastball, but also froze Smith (before he hit him) with a glacial 53-mph eephus (which our mobile readers can peep here).

He made history today, but the particularly mundane kind that’s made all the time in baseball.

Weirder still, backup shortstop Alexi Amarista relieved him after he’d loaded the bases up with two outs and promptly escaped with a one-pitch groundout. He has an unbelievable career efficiency of 0.666 outs per pitch (not sure if this is a real stat).

The Padres are trash, but at least they know how to lose in funny ways.