The latest power rankings from CBS Sports had a big change as the San Diego Padres won five in a row, including a four-game sweep.
The San Diego Padres have turned things around, at least for the time being.
The Padres took four out of six against the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates on the road. Then, San Diego won all four games against the Colorado Rockies at Petco Park, the first two coming via walk-off wins.
The big concern right now is the status of pitcher Nick Pivetta, who left Sunday's game early due to elbow stiffness.
Nonetheless, the five-game winning streak has the Padres rolling, and Matt Snyder of CBS Sports had San Diego moving way up in his latest MLB power rankings.
Snyder previously had San Diego at No. 20, but the Padres are now all the way up at No. 3, behind only the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves, respectively.
"The Padres are winning without Fernando Tatis Jr. hitting for power while Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado have struggled to hit for average. Those three things will all change soon enough," Snyder wrote.
As he wrote, the most impressive part is that Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill have both gotten off to slow starts, although Merrill did hit a home run in Sunday's game.
Tatis, somehow, has yet to hit a home run, but he has more hits recently, ever since Craig Stammen put him at second base for the past two games (which is certainly a new wrinkle).
Manny Machado is hitting .213 and Merrill .217 as of Monday, and Jake Cronenworth is hitting just .154, while Tatis has a .242 average.
We all know what Mason Miller has been doing, but the pitching storyline outside of Miller is Randy Vasquez. Through three starts, Vasquez has a 1-0 record with a 1.02 ERA in three starts, and he has walked just four batters in 17.2 innings.
Now, the Arizona Diamondbacks are at No. 4 in these power rankings, so the National League West has three of the top four teams, showing how talented this group is, at least early on.
Now, the schedule was a bit easier for San Diego lately, but things take a turn as the Padres face the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles this week before taking on the Colorado Rockies and Diamondbacks the week after.
The new series starts against Seattle on Tuesday at Petco Park, and Michael King is slated to start for San Diego with Bryan Woo pitching for the Mariners.