Boogeymen

It's important to know which villains need to be vanquished on the way to glory. Now, the Padres know who their boogeymen are.

A few weeks ago, when it became apparent that the San Diego Padres have a hard time against the Colorado Rockies despite clearly being the better team, I took it as something of a litmus test.

The Rockies repeatedly beating the Padres doesn’t necessarily make them a better team, it just makes them a challenge that the Padres have to overcome. Every great team has that foe that stands between them and greatness. It’s like a required step to make it to the World Series.

Now, there are Padres fans who don’t believe any of that. They believe that wins and losses are black and white, and that the winning team is better than the losing team. Also, they usually believe that the sky is falling whenever the Padres lose a game.

I try to add more nuance to the discussion. I believe the Padres were always going to have to overcome the Dodgers (their biggest rival and strongest challenger within the division) and probably an unlikely foe as well (it makes sense that the foe is managed by former Padres manager Bud Black).

But it’s not just at the team level. The Padres will, at some point, have to learn how to slay Justin Turner like he’s a dragon that’s been terrorizing their team. Because, in a lot of ways, he has been. For years. And, despite not being very good this season, the brown-and-yellow in the uniforms of his opponents woke something up in Turner last night and led to him being the entire L.A. offense in a win over the Padres.

SportsCenter@SportsCenter

JUSTIN TURNER IS THAT GUY 💪 2 HITS. 2 HOME RUNS ‼️ (via @MLB)

4:36 AM · Jul 1, 2022

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98 Reposts · 951 Likes

I am a goal-oriented person, which means that I am usually happy once a goal has been identified with clarity. The goal for the Padres could only be “Win games” for so long. Now it’s coming into focus. Beat the bad teams, compete with the good teams, break the witch’s curse that Bud Black put on the Padres and find the weakness in Justin Turner’s game (when he plays the Padres). This is a direction the Padres can aim themselves.

I’m being a little silly, but I’m also a little serious. The Padres lost to the Dodgers last night and I didn’t mind it much. The Padres leaned into their identity, Joe Musgrove looked like pre-COVID Joe, Manny Machado came back and wasn’t a disaster, and a bunch of other things led me to thinking that the Padres were not far off from being on the winning side of this one (which gives me hope for future games).

All of the Padres’ top 4 hitters in the lineup got hits, along with Grisham and Abrams. Nabil Crismatt struck out 2 of the 3 batters he faced. A lot of good happened for San Diego! The ball just didn’t bounce their way on Thursday night. Because, if it did, that would make less sense than Justin Turner showing up and reminding the team that he’s not going away on his own. He needs to be defeated.