Are the Padres getting hot at the right time?
The Padres are quietly doing a good job of beating the teams they should be beating, and might take over the 2nd NL Wild Card spot soon.
I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but stick with me for a second…
When you pretend that the Los Angeles Dodgers don’t exist, a thing that I sometimes like to do, the Padres have won 7 of their last 9 games.
Now, I know the Dodgers exist and that the Padres have to play them again starting tomorrow evening, but my point is that the Padres have done a good job of beating the teams they’re supposed to beat lately.
There’s no shame in losing to the 2022 Dodgers, they might be one of the best regular season teams we’ve ever seen, and even against them the Padres were able to get a dominant victory before losing the next two games.
The Padres aren’t currently getting much from superstars Juan Soto, Manny Machado (quietly hitting .185 in his last 7 games) and Fernando Tatis Jr., which was supposed to be the core that drove this offense. Instead, they’re once again winning games on the strength of their pitching and just enough offense from guys like…
Ha-Seong Kim, who went 1-4 with an RBI double last night
Jurickson Profar, who is slashing .304/.385/.696 in his last 7 games
Jake Cronenworth, who is 4-8 with 2 HRs and 3 RBIs in his last 2 games
That’s not even mentioning the good performances we’ve seen lately from Jorge Alfaro, Austin Nola, Wil Myers, etc.
As I said yesterday, the “other guys” on this roster are leading the offense to victory these days. That’s a great sign, especially if you expect Soto and Machado to catch fire at some point in September (like I do).
The goal for this weekend’s series is to avoid getting steamrolled by the Dodgers. The same will be true when they play them again in about three weeks. As long as the Padres can win every non-Dodgers series in between, they will head into the playoffs with their heads held high and ready to fight. And, in theory, that’s very possible.
Home runs are fun
The Padres scored 6 runs last night, and hit 3 home runs. The night before, the Padres scored 6 runs…and hit 3 home runs.
I know it’s obvious to say that the offense should hit more home runs, especially at home, but it does feel like they’re being more aggressive lately. Maybe there’s a renewed focus on making hard contact over just getting on base inside the clubhouse? I have no idea.
It does feel like, for some reason, guys that hadn’t hit for power in a while all of a sudden are again. For instance…
Before homering twice in two days, Cronenworth hadn’t hit a HR in about two weeks.
Jurickson Profar has hit 2 HRs in the first week of September. The last HR he hit before that was on August 1st.
Josh Bell and Ha-Seong Kim had both gone homerless for two weeks before hitting one against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday.
Whatever is helping these guys re-find their HR swings is a boon for the Padres offense, especially with Soto and Machado going cold. If it can keep up, it would really help turn an otherwise disappointing offensive season around for the Padres.
A 1-2-3 save for Hader
Yu Darvish was fantastic again, after giving up a couple of early HRs, but I gave him his flowers yesterday.
I was talking to a friend last night about the Padres’ chances of making the playoffs and actually going far. We disagreed on this point, but I told him that I thought Josh Hader was the key to all of it.
I don’t think the team can go far in the playoffs with a broken Josh Hader. And, on the other side, I think a fully restored Josh Hader would get them a lot closer to being a dangerous playoff team than people might realize. For this reason, I keep close tabs on how he’s doing.
Unless I’m mistaken, last night was the first 1-2-3 save he’s had with the Padres. He got a fly out and two ground outs, so no strike outs, but it’s encouraging to see him not even start to wobble on the mound at home against a pretty dangerous Diamondbacks offense. He also did it while throwing just 9 pitches total.
It feels like he’s finding ways to get his slider back in the strike zone, which is one thing that he was struggling with early in his Padres tenure that made him very predictable (batters could just wait for the eventual fastball in the strike zone or take the walk).
Again, if the Padres are getting offense from “the other guys” and are adding an all-star level closer to the bullpen, all they need to do is wait for Soto and Machado to catch fire and they’ll be the team that nobody wants to face in October.
Don’t forget to send in your questions for a Friday Mailbag post!