San Diego Padres: Breaking Down the Starting Rotation
By Ben Fadden
5. Cal Quantrill
The fifth spot in the Padres rotation came all the way down to the final Spring Training game in Peoria against the Chicago Cubs.
Cal Quantrill started the game for the Padres, and the other pitcher competing against him, Logan Allen, came in behind him.
Logan Allen pitched just 2/3 of the first inning, allowing 6 runs. He gave up a two-run home run to Philip Evans and RBI singles to Addison Russell and Christhian Adames.
It wasn’t his best day and certainly wasn’t the day to not pitch well since he was fighting for the fifth and final rotation spot.
Cal Quantrill pitched 2/3 innings allowing 5 earned runs with 1 strikeout.
Quantrill ended up throwing 3 pitches in his first inning of work after a two-out throwing error by Fernando Tatis. That prompted him to miss location up and down, and the wheels came off. He got taken out of the game after Christhian Adames doubled in the right-center field gap.
Before their final outings, Logan Allen had an ERA of 7.27 which may not seem good enough even for the fifth spot in a major league rotation, but a majority of his even earned runs came in a bad outing vs the Kansas City Royals.
Both starters were non-roster invitees meaning that odds were against them to make the rotation at the beginning of spring.
Cal Quantrill had a better ERA at 4.63 but only struck out seven batters over 11 2/3 innings, putting Logan Allen as the favorite going into their last outings.
Allen, 21, was able to reach Triple-A El Paso last season pitching to a 1.63 ERA in 5 starts. He finished at El Paso with a 4-0 record raising some eyebrows back in San Diego.
Quantrill made it to El Paso as well, posting a 3-1 record with a 3.48 ERA striking out 22 batters. The Padres have had high hopes for the Stanford alumni, as they used their first-round pick on him in 2016.
Even though Logan Allen was able to grab the fifth spot in the rotation to start the season, Quantrill will have plenty of opportunities to pitch in San Diego.
He and Allen may rotate in that fifth rotation spot, Andy Green might want to experiment with a six-man rotation to rest his young arms, or of course, there may be injuries.
The 4th and 3rd starters in the rotation are…