The Padres respond, but can they figure out Petco?
The Padres are coming back to San Diego and riding high after taking a series in Milwaukee. Can their offense stay hot at home?
Baseball is difficult to wrap your head around on a daily basis. The season is so long, and there are so many games, that it’s hard not to let whatever has happened in the past few games dictate how you feel about the team now and going forward. But I want to try and keep some perspective today as I write about what the San Diego Padres just did.
When the Padres dropped a close series to the Brewers in San Diego about a week ago, I openly compared it to the Padres-Giants series earlier in the year.
In mid-May, the Padres lost a series 2-1 to the Giants and got blown out in one of those games. The rubber match ended with the Padres down 1 run with the bases loaded, so it was obvious to me that the series could’ve gone either way. I was interested in seeing if the next series was similarly close.
When they next saw the Giants, they swept them. The games were still pretty tight, except the Padres got the one blowout win in the series this time, but it definitely looked like the Padres were the better team.
Now, let’s rewind. A little over a week ago, the Brewers came to San Diego and left with a 2-1 series victory. Every game was close. It felt like the series could’ve gone the other direction with a few lucky or unlucky bounces. I was looking forward to seeing how the Padres looked the next time they faced this opponent that appeared to be an even match for them.
Well, the Padres left Milwaukee with a 3-1 series victory and should’ve swept the whole series. Taylor Rogers losing his control for a night cost them game 1, which is an event so rare that I feel safe in saying that it wouldn’t happen again if they re-played the series a few dozen times.
Bob Melvin’s team is showing some things that it hasn’t shown before he got here.
The Padres are usually playing up to their own level instead of playing down or up to the level of their opponent. They take care of business against lesser opponents and show up against the good teams when needed. Mostly, they seem to be improving and adding more weapons to their arsenal as the season goes along.
This week, the weapon they added was a bounceback. They hadn’t really faced much in the way of turmoil since the season started, but the wheels got wobbly after the Taylor Rogers’ blown save. It was the team’s 5th loss in the row, they had lost 7 of 9, and it felt like a prolonged slump circa Fall 2021 might be coming to knock this team off.
Instead, the Padres offense woke up. They scored 17 runs over their next three games and clearly defeated the NL Central leaders.
After Friday’s win, I thought this might be coming. I said, on a podcast, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Padres rattle off wins in 4 of their next 5 or 6 games. They have gone 2-for-2 since, but now they face a hell of a challenge to make me seem prophetic: The New York Mets at Petco Park.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Bandwagon Beach to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.