To the untrained eye, Nick Pivetta is guilty as charged. He’s still working his way back from the flexor strain that sent him to the injured list in April, but when he travels with the team, he’s adamant about where his teammates sit on the bus.
Given the way Pivetta pitched last year, Jason Adam is among those who are more than happy to humor whatever perceived superstitions Pivetta has.
“He’s nasty; I’ll do whatever he wants as long as he keeps shoving,” Adam said.
But the 33-year-old Pivetta is quick to clarify the bus rules.
He’s not at all superstitious like some teammates. He is, however, absolutely the “rule-follower” that Michael King declared in spring training. And in the absence of rules, Pivetta has no problem establishing law and order in something that can be as chaotic as fitting a couple dozen personalities onto a bus.
“I don’t mean for it to be a big deal,” Pivetta said. “I think, for me, it’s just where we sit throughout the year. It just keeps order. Whenever something happens — guys get called up, sent down, somebody gets hurt, somebody comes back — it just keeps the house in order.”
Yes, someone’s got to be that guy.
Then there are the kind of guys like Samad Taylor and Will Wagner. They are without a doubt superstitious.
“If I go out there today and get a couple knocks, I’ll come back tomorrow wearing the same perfume,” Taylor said. “If I spray it three times and go out there and get a hit, the next day I’ll spray it three times again and use the same perfume.”
With that, Taylor opened up the cubby atop his locker to show off his collection.
He’s got fragrances that smell like laundry in the morning, sandalwood and applewood and plenty in between.
“This one has hits in it,” Taylor said as he pulled out a Barakkat Rouge. “The Azzaro has knocks in it. The Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue. But for the most part, if you look at the success I’ve had (before landing on the injured list with an oblique strain), I’d say pretty much all of them have knocks in them.”
Wagner’s got some similar ticks.
Like if he goes hitless after using the corner shower, Wagner will look for some hits in a different showerhead the following day. If he wears an arm sleeve and wrist tape and does not get a hit, the next day he might tape up both wrists instead.
“Or if I’m really struggling,” said Wagner, currently at Triple-A El Paso, “I go no swag at all.”
Randy Vásquez’s start-day to-do list isn’t as much about a superstition that locks him in as it is getting a rise out of lockermate Wandy Peralta.
The 27-year-old Dominican laughs as he relays his antics through interpreter Jorge Merlos.
“One thing I like to do when I’m getting ready for my start day is I’ll put my bag, my shoes, my cleats — everything — by Wandy’s locker,” Vásquez said. “Wandy goes right to, ‘Hey, I told you I don’t want any of that stuff in my locker. That’s my locker. You’re not supposed to put anything there.’ That kind of eggs him on every time I do it, so I keep doing it.”
Vásquez is far from done.
“Another thing is … I’ll grab Wandy’s sandals and wear those instead. Then sooner or later he comes to find me and says, ‘Hey, man, what are you doing? Get your own sandals. Those are my sandals. Where are they?’
“So he ends up spending a good amount of time trying to find me.”
One of the Padres’ elder statesmen, Xander Bogaerts, might be the most superstitious guy in the clubhouse.
“He has to do everything at a specific time, be out there at a specific time, and have certain things,” lockermate Jake Cronenworth said. “Everything has to be in order.”
Told of the clubhouse consensus, the 33-year-old shortstop paused and thought for a second.
“Really?” he said.
Then he seemed to understand the optics.
“I mean, OK, yeah,” Bogaerts said with a laugh. “But I just tend to do a lot of it mostly out of habit. It’s not that I’m thinking, ‘This is what I did before the game.’ Just like I grab the rosin bag every inning. I tend to pee every inning, too, just because I have to pee. If I don’t, then I don’t, but I tend to go every inning.
“So it’s just more like what I’m used to doing, you know?”
Told of Mason Miller’s working theory on this sort of thing — “We don’t have superstitions, just winning routines,” the Padres’ closer said — Bogaerts smiled.
He can definitely cop to that.
“That’s a good one,” Bogaerts said.