2. Rich Hill
If you thought that wasn’t bad enough, Rich Hill unfortunately had been the worst of them all. When the San Diego Padres decided they wanted to give it a go to give the team a chance to make the playoffs, they went out to upgrade their starting pitching by acquiring trusted veteran Rich Hill from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite already getting up there in age, Hill has proven to still be a durable, reliable pitcher the past couple of years, maintaining a solid ERA between 3.80 and 4.80 for the majority of the time while making more than 26 starts per season.
However, since joining the Padres for their playoff run, he has probably single-handedly knocked them out of contention for good. In six games, Hill compiled a horrific 0-4 record, 10.71 ERA, 1.97 WHIP, giving up 23 earned runs including eight home runs, eight walks and 16 strikeouts in just 19.1 innings pitched. And remember, he actually started five of those games, so he definitely had really short outings in each instance. To no one’s surprise, the team ended up losing every game in which he pitched.
In doing so, the Padres are currently way out of a playoff spot and have essentially called it a season. Looking back, the best move for the Padres probably should have been not making a move at the deadline in the first place. Things unfortunately have blown up in their face as they now have to resort to looking forward to next season. At least in comparison, the Phillies have gotten three wins from the games Lorenzen has pitched, so he hasn’t affected the team negatively just yet.