A test of patience

The Padres are in a rough patch of the season. How will they get out? How long will it last? Will we all lose our marbles before it ends?

The baseball season is too long. As a result, good teams always have at least one spell where they look terrible and bad teams always have at least one spell where they look good. Right now, the San Diego Padres look bad.

If you’re inpatient, or simply scarred from being a Padres fan last year (or for any real extended period of time), it’s hard to see the team playing so poorly and not be discouraged or fatalistic. You will be forgiven for saying things like “It’s happening again,” or even, “This team doesn’t have enough without Tatis or Machado at 100%.”

You’re not necessarily right, and you’re not necessarily wrong. You’re just watching baseball. It always happens like this.

I am not a man of faith. But I do occasionally believe in people when there’s overwhelming evidence that I should. I do believe that this team has a better chance of getting back on track with Bob Melvin at the helm than with any of the inexperienced managers they’ve had around over the last 20 years or so.

That’s not to say that the Padres are playing just like a Bob Melvin team. He’s only been the manager for a few months right now. It’s going to take some time. But I do have faith that he’ll keep them out of a full tailspin.

I’ll go back to something I said last week: If the Padres could’ve handled business against the Diamondbacks and Mariners, they wouldn’t have felt so bad about going 1-3 against the Dodgers.

Yes, that’s an oversimplification. There are larger issues at play here. The offense that was “just good enough” no longer is now that they’ve taken some injuries. The dominant starting pitching staff has gotten a little less dominant. And the bullpen hasn’t gotten much better.

The Padres don’t look like a playoff team right now, but don’t let that fool you. That’s baseball trying to prey upon our inability to think in terms of months instead of days while we watch this sport. The Padres still have an 85% chance of making the playoffs this year, according to FanGraphs. All hope is not lost.