The 1st Place San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres sit in 1st place in the NL West after destroying the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday night. What's next?

A night after Yu Darvish threw the team on his back and got the Padres back into the win column, the team followed it up with a 12-5 win at Wrigley Field in a game that reminded me of the bad times.

Yeah, you heard me. I want to, for just a second, talk about the bad times. The pre-Tatis, pre-Machado times when Padres fans were hoping for a miracle to get them a team that might play meaningful baseball in September.

The times when the team was tanking and telling us that they weren’t. Because that’s what I saw from the Chicago Cubs last night.

Kyle Hendricks, who has historically killed the Padres maybe more than any other starting pitcher in baseball, was killing the Padres. Through 5 innings, he gave up 1 run, 4 hits and no walks.

After giving up a leadoff double to Jake Cronenworth in the 6th, Hendricks was immediately replaced by Chris Martin (not the Coldplay one).

The 78 pitches Hendricks threw was the 4th lowest total of his 12 starts this season. In the ones where he threw less pitches, he either gave up 4+ runs in 5 innings or had already pitched 7 innings in a game that would finish with a final score of….

Hold on, I need to read this again.

Yup, the only other time that Kyle Hendricks was lifted throwing this few pitches in a good start, the Cubs won 21-0. Not a typo. He left the game with a 17-0 lead.

Suffice to say, Tuesday night’s situation did not align with either of those. Hendricks was sharp and the Cubs’ lead was a meager 5-0 when he was pulled.

Apparently, Hendricks hadn’t pitched in 2 weeks due to “shoulder fatigue” and that’s why he was limited in this outing, but with how well he was going, it did feel a little bit like the Cubs were actively trying to lose the game when they replaced Hendricks.

Either way, the Padres were only too glad to take the opportunity when it presented itself. They scored 9 runs over the next three outs. Something tells me the Cubs players also thought that their team was not trying to win.

For a brief moment on Tuesday night, the Padres sat alone in 1st place in the NL West. They were a half-game up on the Dodgers, who had not finished beating the Angels yet. Now, they’re as they were yesterday, tied with the Dodgers for 1st place.

Considering the news of the day (re: Tatis), that is an incredible accomplishment. The Padres are currently playing without their most valuable position player, two of their most valuable pitchers, their culture-shifting manager and bench coach. And they’re not slowing down any time soon.

Just like they’ve done all season, the Padres continued to fight against the Cubs until the Cubs gave up. That’s certainly one way to win a game.