The hottest team in baseball

After a sweep of the Rockies, the Padres' second straight sweep, San Diego is home to a team that is hitting on all cylinders.

The San Diego Padres are the hottest team in baseball. They’ve won six games in a row and are 9-1 in their last 10.

Coming up next, after a day off today, is the Seattle Mariners. They are coming off being swept by the Detroit Tigers, getting no-hit for the second time in this young season, and are 3-7 in their last 10 games.

Before looking ahead too much, let’s highlight just how good the Padres have been during this run…

The hitting

The Padres have scored 61 runs in their last 10 games. I know it’s been a lot of games against the Rockies, some of them at Coors Field, but that is seriously impressive.

Outside of the last two wins, the Padres had scored at least 5 runs in each of their recent wins. The offense is absolutely humming, and it got back its most dangerous weapon yesterday in Fernando Tatis Jr.

You would think, after a week off, “El Niño” would need some time to get his timing back against MLB pitching. That notion went out the window when he hit a ball straight up the middle for a single in his first at-bat.

From there, it was magic after magic after magic.

San Diego Padres@Padres

The game's just better with @tatis_jr in it. #HungryForMore

11:40 PM · May 19, 2021

---

229 Reposts · 1.36K Likes

Single-Home Run-Double-Double is a hell of a way to show off that your timing is fine.

After just a couple of weeks of hitting their stride, the Padres have moved up to 12th in MLB in batting average and 13th in runs scored. They went from one of the league’s worst offenses to above league average in the blink of an eye, and all it took was some lesser opponents (and probably a few adjustments by the hitters).

The pitching (and defense)

The hitting is going to steal all the headlines. That’s probably always going to be true, but it’s especially true when the Padres spent big money on Wil Myers and then Eric Hosmer and then Manny Machado and then Fernando Tatis Jr., who is also being heralded as the new face of MLB.

But, the dirty little secret that will probably remain as such all year, is that the San Diego Padres will go as far as their pitching can carry them.

The Padres are currently 1st in team ERA and 3rd in WHIP amongst all MLB teams. Pick any word you want to describe them: Dominant, elite, etc.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about Chris Paddack and Dinelson Lamet and Ryan Weathers, and worrying about injuries to Adrian Morejon and Keone Kela, but the truth of the matter is that all of those guys don’t really affect the bulk of the rotation or the most important parts of the bullpen.

As I wrote about the other day, Yu Darvish is having the best season in his very good career. His current stat line looks like this:

54.2 IP, 1.81 ERA, 202 ERA+, 2.79 FIP, 0.878 WHIP

That’s really good! Now, let’s see if you can figure out who this one belongs to:

51 IP, 2.47 ERA, 148 ERA+, 2.86 FIP, 0.863 WHIP

That stat line is nearly as good as Darvish’s, and Yu is going to get a lot of Cy Young votes if he continues on like he has. That makes what Joe Musgrove is doing this year all the more impressive, nearly matching him start-for-start.

And now that Blake Snell is okay and Chris Paddack is back to his 2019 form, it’s easy to see the vision that A.J. Preller had in his head this offseason while building this team.

1-5 in the starting rotation is basically without flaws, depending on how you feel about Dinelson Lamet this week, and the bullpen is the best in baseball. Once again, the Padres have picked up a player off of the scrap heap and turned him into the best closer in baseball.

And Mark Melancon isn’t alone in the bullpen. Pierce Johnson and Tim Hill and Austin Adams and Drew Pomeranz and even Craig freaking Stammen have all been nails for the Padres this season.

Remember when I said the Padres scored 61 runs over their last 10 games? The pitching side of the team has given up just 19 runs over that same stretch. That’s an average of winning by 4 runs.

The role players

The funny thing about the Padres is how the roster is constructed with lots of players that are used to not having a strict role. Let me explain…

Austin Nola is a former shortstop that has played catcher, first base, and second base in the last 10 games.

Jake Cronenworth is a former pitcher and shortstop that has played first base and second base in the last 10 games.

Ha-Seong Kim would win the utility infielder Gold Glove award this year, if such a thing exosted. He’s played everywhere and been great anywhere.

Jurickson Profar is a former shortstop who plays left field or first base or second base depending on where the team needs him the most.

Oh, and lest we forget the team’s superstar third baseman / right fielder, Manny Machado. Most players making $30 million per season wouldn’t want to play a “rover” position, but Manny plays it with the same dedication that earned him two Gold Gloves at third base.

This team has egos, all teams do, but it’s so much fun to see so many of them move around and play wherever the team needs them on any given day. It shows how dedicated they are to winning, understanding how close this team is to contending for a World Series trophy, and also shows the new guys that come to the team what is expected of them.

It’s not about who drives in the winning run or which pitcher gets the win, it’s just about climbing the standings and playing the best baseball possible. In 2021, that’s what Padres baseball is all about.