Padres extend partnership with Dust Devils

For at least the next two seasons, the Tri-City Dust Devils will remain a part of the San Diego Padres’ organization, the Padres president and CEO announced Thursday at Gesa Stadium.

Playing out the final part of their second season as the Padres’ short-season Class A affiliate, the Dust Devils extended their player development contract with San Diego through 2018.

Mike Dee, the Padres president and CEO, said there was little hesitation to keep their partnership with Tri-City going.

“Great, A-plus, first-class operation,” Dee said of the Dust Devils. “It’s a very important part of the developmental process for our players. It’s got to get off to a good start. It’s a baseball development operation first and foremost, and they get it. The condition of the field, the environment for the players, the host families. And the crowd support here is fantastic.”

In their first season as a Padres affiliate, the Dust Devils won the Northwest League North division with a 42-34 regular season record, and were one game away from winning the Northwest League championship against the Hillsboro Hops. This year, the Dust Devils missed out on winning the NWL North first-half title by one game and entered Thursday night’s contest 4 1/2 games behind the Everett AquaSox in the second-half pennant race.

Quantrill keeps living up to the hype

When most pitchers can throw all of their pitches for strikes, they have a good outing. When Cal Quantrill located everything on Wednesday against the Spokane Indians, he was overpowering.

The Padres’ eighth overall pick, Quantrill used 59 pitches to get through his 4 2/3 -inning start Wednesday for the Dust Devils (5-8), and threw just 14 balls to the 16 batters he faced to lead the Dust Devils to a 2-1 win.

“He had overpowering stuff and command,” Dust Devils manager Ben Fritz said. “He located his fastball and it was firm, and he had a swing-and-miss change-up. So I mean, it was impressive to watch.”

“I attacked hitters early; we had talked about getting guys out on fewer pitches,” Quantrill said. “But yeah, trying to get deeper into games, trying to get my first professional win, trying to get to five innings, which is hard.”

Quantrill’s second start was, in a nutshell, everything that’s been right with the Dust Devils since the All-Star break. Other than a rough outing from Hansel Rodriguez on Tuesday — he gave up three earned runs over four innings against the Indians — Tri-City starters have been nearly flawless in August, not allowing an earned run over six combined starts, totaling 26 1/3 innings. Tri-City is 4-3 since the All-Star break.

“All year our starting pitching has been solid, but they’ve definitely stepped it up as of late,” Fritz said. “They’ve got a little competition between themselves over who can have a better outing.”

Trailing Everett (10-4) by 4 1/2 games entering Thursday night, Fritz said consistently dominant starting pitching has given the Dust Devils a chance to stay alive in the playoff picture.

“There’s a different energy, and maybe it’s the starting pitching, but there’s a different energy and a sense of urgency,” Fritz said. “Everybody wants to go to the playoffs, but we can’t do it unless we just focus on winning tonight.”

The Dust Devils start an eight game road trip Friday, beginning with a five game series against the Boise Hawks (6-7) and wrapping up with three against the AquaSox. All games against Boise are scheduled for 6:15 p.m. and the games during the Everett series will start at 7:05 p.m.

Killing opponents with consistency

While Tri-City starters have been baffling opposing hitters, Chris Baker has continued to provide consistency at the plate and in the field for the Dust Devils in August.

Baker’s season has been defined by a fielding percentage at shortstop that has stayed above .950 and a batting average that has hovered around .300.

“He’s a guy who’s very steady, you just know what you’re going to get every day,” Fritz said. “It’s easy to plug him into the three-hole every day.”

Baker’s most recent triumph at the plate was a four-hit, three-RBI performance Tuesday, his second multi-hit game in August in six starts. He entered Thursday’s contest with a team-best batting average (.303) and slugging percentage (.389), and was second in on base percentage (.387).

This story was originally published August 11, 2016 at 9:17 PM with the headline "Padres extend partnership with Dust Devils."