The San Diego Padres have been one of baseball's biggest surprises, but is their success sustainable?
So far this season, the San Diego Padres have been a classic example of a glass half-full vs. glass half-empty team.
If your baseball glass is half full, you’re focusing on Padres’ 24-16 record, which has them tied for first in the NL West with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and that record puts them on track for what would be a 97-win season, according to an analysis written by Dennis Lin of The Athletic.
If you’re one of those dour half-empty types, you’re looking at a subpar offense that features zero home runs from right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., a bunch of discarded starters who are punching above their weight, and an amazing performance from closer Mason Miller that can’t possibly continue. There’s also the problem of their plus-three run differential, which suggests that their current record should be 20-20.
So…what to make of all this? Both of these perspectives can be true, so we'll leave it to third baseman Manny Machado to clarify the offensive part of this.
“It’s obvious; we’re not hitting,” Machado said after the Padres finished their four-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals with 14 combined hits, which was their lowest total ever for a series of that length.
“But we’re getting things done offensively, whatever it is, getting guys over, bunting guys over, getting situations today (on Sunday). I mean, we left seven on. I left four of them on myself. It could have been a completely different game if (I) shrink that (deficit), which we need to do if we want to get to where we want to get to.”
The rotation picture is slightly better when you factor in recent signee Lucas Giolito, although his velocity is currently down to 93 mph. The strong bullpen will compensate for some of the rotation weaknesses, but there’s also plenty of wear and tear over time as they rack up more and more innings.
If you look at this historically, it’s not hard to make an educated guess about what will happen going forward. The Padres are a veteran team with a new manager who knows what he’s doing in Craig Stammen, so they’ll continue to stay above .500.
Beyond that, a lot of what happens depends on what the Padres do or don’t do at the deadline. GM A.J. Preller has been known to pull a few rabbits out of his hat at the trade deadline, but at this point we don’t know if the new owners will give him the authority and the resources to do that this time around.
If he does, the Pads will probably be a playoff team, but if Preller has to continue to rely on retreads to carry the day, it’s going to be an uphill battle to make the postseason.