SAN DIEGO — Jayce Tingler wasn't hired to be a babysitter.
But he became an au pair managing the Padres, who inexplicably went from Good Time Charlies (which we now must believe was a phony call) to a colony of mopey children, and he wasn't good at it.
Just past the point of no return, Tingler somehow ran out of diapers and lost control of the playpen.
So he got fired by his work parents, which now allows him to wander among adults and perhaps find a grown-ups table.
I don't believe he was very good at his job, but Tingler obviously wasn't the sole reason for what was one of the greatest collapses in baseball history.
And no one has said exactly what Tingler did wrong. Did he go out and leave the kids home alone?
This is GM/control freak A.J. Preller's house.
As puppeteer, Preller controls every string — but the one to owner Peter Seidler's purse. His hands are into everything. These are his players, some of whom came to him and Seidler whining and complaining about Tingler — despite so many of them failing to play at a major league level.
Children. They should have been grounded.
It was an embarrassment in every single phase of the game. The most entertaining package became junk mail.
Preller couldn't fire himself, but it was A.J.'s fault. This was his (third) manager, his coaching staff (yes), and, most importantly, his players.
He waved the baton in front of this orchestra hitting sour notes. So many of his kids stunk when it mattered, without a clutch bone, a muscle of remorse, or a tendon and ligament of pride in their bodies — other than the ones which controlled the pointed finger.
But the players are being cleared of this incendiary tire fire, and they were the arsonists. Watching them became a prostate exam performed by Dr. Andre the Giant.
They became an old dog, rolling over and playing dead.
Other than spending hundreds of millions in yeasty Seidler dough, what has Preller accomplished? Nothing but false hope.
An expert in international baseball, A.J. can recruit ability (and trade it away), but he has to find their hearts and hear the beat. Seidler thinks trading talent will cease, and that his GM knows how to read players inside and out. I question it. The best teams, the best players, keep playing. His do not.
Watch the Dodgers, whose millionaires never stop. Have the Giants and Rays overachieved, or do they just do baseball better than everybody else?
My dad busted his ass commercial fishing for around 70 years. I hate fishing. But I learned this: If a captain consistently went out and didn't catch anything, he was getting thrown off the bridge. No fish, no money.
I have nowhere near the religious trust in Preller that Seidler still has, but Peter, Godfather of Optimism, believes it can be fixed — although he admits he sensed something was amiss, that the car was speeding out of control, and he didn't apply the brakes.
It seems the thrill ride was so euphoric — something he'd never experienced here — that when it broke down he expected it to soon fix itself. And it never did.
"I don't think we pulled every lever we could have to make it stop," Seidler says. "We didn't take enough decisive action. The great teams kill these things. We didn't."
"Padres" means "fathers." So grow up into the name.
