From 4 homers allowed to his place in Padres lore, a look at Craig Stammen through the years

Craig Stammen was not happy as he stood at his locker on June 9, 2019.

He’d not only given up four home runs. He’d given up a home run to four straight batters to turn a save situation into what must be the low point of a 13-year career on the mound.

The conversation that followed with a handful of reporters that gathered around his locker was necessary — at least as necessary as any conversation after a regular-season game of baseball — so Stammen met the queries head on.

It was the opposite of pulling teeth. He lost a game in spectacular fashion and did not begrudge any questions that followed, some answers more obvious than the others.

“This is what it feels like to give up a home run,” Stammen, hired Thursday as the next Padres manager, said then. “You want to dig a hole, crawl behind the mound and go in that hole and never return. Every time you give up a home run. So to give up four in a row, times that by four.

“It doesn’t feel good.”

Stammen, of course, did not bury himself in a hole. He spoke about sequences and predictability, the prospect of potentially tipping pitches and the need to get back on the mound and figure it out.

And he was back on the mound four days later, continuing a five-year run in which only Yusmeiro Petit (363 IP) threw more than the 345⅔ innings Stammen provided the Padres’ bullpen from 2017 through 2021.

The next fall, when the Padres ran out of starting pitching in an NL Wild Card Series matchup against Mike Shildt’s Cardinals, it was Stammen whom the team turned to in a bullpen game in a 4-0 win for the team’s first postseason series win since 1998.

One of Stammen’s predecessors as manager had all the confidence in the world in the decision.

“We banked on the man,” Jayce Tingler said in October 2020. “This guy never missed a day of ‘COVID camp.’ He knows this mound well. He is one of the leaders of this clubhouse. There is a ton of belief in the man there.

“At the end of the day, we looked at numbers, we looked at other options and we just gave it to a trustworthy man.”

Here’s a look at Stammen through the years:

1984: Born in North Star, Ohio (March 9).

2002: Graduated from Versailles High School in Dayton, Ohio

2005: Drafted by the Nationals in the 12th round out of the University of Dayton

2009: Threw 6⅓ innings of four-run ball in MLB debut with Nationals on May 21. Stammen went on to throw the only complete game of his career that year (July 11) en route to posting a 5.11 ERA over 105⅔ innings.

2010: Made his first relief appearance on Aug. 10 and threw 23 innings out of the bullpen to close the year.

2015: Nontendered by the Nationals in December after missing most of the year with an elbow injury.

2016: Threw 27 ⅓ innings for three Cleveland affiliates while making his way back from injury; did not pitch in the majors and signed a minor league deal with the Padres on Dec. 23.

2017: Made Padres’ opening day roster and posted a 3.14 ERA over a then career-high 60 appearances out of the bullpen.

2018: Signed a two-year, $4.5 million deal with the Padres and went on to appear in 149 games (3.02 ERA) on that contract.

2020: Signed a two-year, $9 million deal to remain with the Padres. The coronavirus pandemic delayed the start of that season until late July. Stammen had a 5.63 ERA over 24 innings over the shortened season, but added a chapter to Padres lore with 1⅔ scoreless innings to begin a bullpen game in a win in the only postseason start of his career.

2022: Shoulder trouble limited Stammen to 40⅔ innings (4.43 ERA) in what proved to be his last MLB season.

2023: Signed a minor league deal with the Padres in January but suffered a torn capsule and strained subscapula in his right shoulder, related to the torn rotator cuff sustained a year earlier. Stammen announced his retirement in August.

2024:  Re-joined the Padres organization as an assistant to the major league coaching staff and baseball operations department, enabling him to split time between the minors and Petco Park.

Thursday: Hired as manager to replace the retired Mike Shildt.