Are we there yet?

The Padres are on coming up on the final leg of their toughest test this season. How are they doing and how much longer is left?

I told you last week that the San Diego Padres are tired, and not much has changed since then.

I had hoped that Trent Grisham would be back soon, and that would inject some much needed energy into the lineup, but that didn’t play out. His heel is still bothering him and the Padres are still trying to get by with a utility infielder as their every day centerfielder.

And while you’ll hear a lot of people talk about the Padres playing in 20 straight games, and being beaten down by that, it’s actually much worse.

A quick recap

The Padres are in the midst of playing 42 games in 44 days with lots of travel, while missing big chunks of their roster to injury or COVID during parts of it, and the upcoming off day won’t offer much in the way of rest.

After the Padres finish this week’s series against the Cubs, they’ll have a single off day….to fly cross-country to New York to start 13 more consecutive games that ends with a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers that the whole world will be watching.

Are we there yet?

If you did the math above, you’ll know there are just 16 games in 17 days left in this brutal stretch of schedule for the Padres. They’re past the halfway point! The schedule gets much, much easier after this. All the team has to do is survive this stretch and they’ll be okay.

Survival, to me, means a record above .500 over these 42 games. Luckily, this brutal stretch included the team winning 9-straight games, so they’re on a good pace right now.

With 16 games left to survive, the Padres have gone 17-9 in their last 26 games. That’s fantastic!

And while the games that are left include matchups against the Dodgers, the 1st place Cubs, and the 1st place Mets, they also get a couple of series against the Rockies and Reds. They should be fine, but it might not be pretty.

Relying on arms

The funny thing about baseball is that the stars are the guys with the bat, but the ones that can affect the game the most are the ones on the mound. That showed itself to be true in the Padres series against the Mets, where Yu Darvish and Blake Snell dragged a tired team to victory while Joe Musgrove and Chris Paddack couldn’t make up for the currently anemic offense.

It’s probably going to be like this for a while longer, with big pitching performances (probably from the two guys at the top of the rotation) needed to carry the team until the offense gets some rest or the injured guys (Trent Grisham, Austin Nola, Manny Machado) get healthy. Whichever comes first.

That could be bad news for the next couple of series. The Padres will likely need something good from Ryan Weathers or Dinelson Lamet over the next two games if they hope to not lose another series to the Cubs. Then, Blake Snell gets to test out if he’s actually found his old form by going up against Jacob deGrom and the New York Mets once again.

Quick Series Preview: Cubs at Padres

The good news for the Padres is that they’ll be facing the two worst pitchers in the Cubs rotation this time around, both of whom they missed at Wrigley.

Jake Arrieta has been awful to the tune of a 5.26 ERA, and he’s coming off an outing where he gave up 6 earned runs in just 2 innings against the San Francisco Giants. He’ll match up against Yu Darvish in the third game of the series.

Old friend Zach Davies, who will likely (and deservedly) earn a loud applause from the fans at Petco Park on Tuesday, has a 4.94 ERA to show for a rocky season. He seemed like he figured things out for a few starts there before the same Giants tagged him for 4 earned runs and chased him after 4.1 innings.

(In case you were wondering, the Giants are in 1st place with a 2 game lead.)

In Chicago, Ryan Weathers looked about as bad as he has all season. Meanwhile, Dinelson Lamet looked almost ready to be a real starting pitcher before defensive catastrophes behind him muddied things up. Both will again have a chance to prove something against the Cubs in games 1 and 2, respectively.

The Padres offense scored just 6 runs over 3 games at Wrigley Field before scoring just 5 runs over 4 games against the Mets at home. They’re out of gas. I think the pitchers need to bring this one home.