Rivera sticks out in Padres’ catcher crowd

Rene Rivera is batting .125 and winning at a .833 clip.

The Padres’ “third” catcher has two hits in 16 at-bats. He’s struck out seven times and stranded eight runners on base.

And the Padres, 7-9 overall, are 5-1 in the games he has started.

Sure, Rivera is Andrew Cashner’s personal catcher, which betters the chances of everyone in the lineup being a winner in that particular game. But consider this from Cashner:

“It’s what makes me the best I can be,” the staff ace said of Rivera being the one receiving each of his filthy pitches over four starts.

The good problem for the Padres is that Rivera may be a big part of what makes the entire pitching staff the best it can be.

Padres starters have a 1.31 ERA with Rivera behind the plate. The staff as a whole has a 1.08 ERA throwing to Rivera. (The staff’s ERA when Rivera is not catching is 3.90.)

Bud Black likes what he’s seen from Rivera so much that in addition to being Cashner’s consigliore, Rivera was entrusted with catching young Robbie Erlin’s first start of the season and on Sunday caught the first game in which Tyson Ross pitched like the guy the Padres need him to be.

So why is Rivera’s ability to so exceptionally handle a pitching staff in any way a problem?

For one, he’s a .202 hitter over 361 career plate appearances. That’s a big part of why he’s played so little in the majors after making his big-league debut at age 20 in 2004.

Moreover, there will not be room on the roster for three catchers much longer.

Yasmani Grandal is not going anywhere for at least a few years, and Nick Hundley provides a more dangerous bat and is making $4 million.

These too-many-for-too-few roster situations often work themselves out in the form of injury or other circumstance. But what to do about this excess is already on the Padres’ minds and, barring something unforeseen, one of the the catchers must go, probably within the next month.

It would be one thing if Rivera was simply a good defensive catcher. It’s more than that. It’s stunning what he does calling a game, framing pitches, knowing opposing batters, managing the guy on the mound with both sternness and understanding.

“When he’s catching,” Cashner said, “I don’t shake off much. I trust when he’s seeing something. We’re almost always on the same page. Our rapport, back and forth, is pretty good.”

Such is the respect Cashner has for Rivera that he appreciates when Rivera yells at him or fires the ball back hard enough to sting Cashner’s hand.

“When I don’t execute, he lets me know,” Cashner said. “I like it. A catcher should be pissed when you don’t execute what he knows you should.”

Now, we should be careful to not overstate Rivera’s importance in the five victories in which he has started, compared to two wins in Grandal’s eight starts and the losses in both of Hundley’s starts. Cashner might be pretty darn effective throwing to one of the Padres PA announcer candidates, and he said this week that “it’s not like I can’t throw to other people.” But neither should we underestimate Rivera’s value.

“The 150 pitches they caught (in a game) are, the majority of the time, more important than the four at-bats they take,” Bud Black said of his philosophy regarding catchers, which he shares with them the first day of spring training. “They’re calling 150 pitches. They’re catching, they’re blocking, they’re receiving, they’re controlling the running game.”

When Cameron Maybin and Carlos Quentin return from the disabled list, the Padres will have to make a choice between Hundley and Rivera remaining.

“We’ve had that debate,” Bud Black said of what will become of the crowd at catcher. “We’ll keep mixing and matching. We don’t have timetable. At some point, we have to make some roster decisions.”

A lot can happen before then, and it would be nice if Rivera could get the average up above .200.

But it says here – based on what it says in the box score and the standings – that Rivera should stay.