One hundred games into the 162-game season, the San Diego Padres were 50–50. They were getting ready to end another year of the tenures of Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, not to mention the final season of Jurickson Profar’s career.
On Saturday night, they beat Arizona 5-0 in Phoenix and improved to 43-18 after falling to .500 on a July evening in Cleveland. He did this by giving half the starting lineup a night off and with the fill-in starter from Triple-A El Paso, Randy Vasquez, allowing only one hit to a Diamondbacks team desperate for a win.
First-year manager Mike Shilts said, “There’s no doubt that this club, no matter who we put in there, is going to compete.”
A 180-degree turn from last year, when San Diego turned around at the first sign of adversity and consistently failed to win close ones. Bob Melvin led one of the game’s most star-studded rosters to an 82–80 record and missed the playoffs, possibly the most disappointing season in the history of a franchise that knows a lot about disappointing seasons.
This isn’t one of those seasons, which is why you might want to put some money on the Padres if you’re looking for a cheap-value pick in the National League.
A lot of “smart” money will be bet on the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. But Los Angeles’ pitching staff is thinner than a runway model, and Philadelphia has been a sub-.500 team over the last 65 games.
Which brings us back to why San Diego is your NL sleeper. Not only is it playing the best ball of any contender since mid-July, but it also may have the fewest weaknesses of any playoff team.
Their starting pitching may not be as good as the Phillies’, but Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, Dylan Cease and Michael King are a solid rotation. Cease has more strikeouts than anyone not named Tarik Skubal or Chris Sale, while Darvish and Musgrove are finally healthy after missing long stretches of the season. King was a revelation, posting a 2.95 earned run average in 31 starts during his first full year in the MLB rotation.
The Padres have as good a bullpen as anyone. Despite his slump in September, Robert Suárez recorded 36 saves and nine wins. Tanner Scott and Jason Adam are excellent set-up men, while Jeremiah Estrada and Adrian Morejon can be shutouts for many MLB teams.
aggressively, San Diego somehow got better after trading Juan SotoAn act of bias that could allow general manager AJ Preller to keep his job after last year’s flop.
Its lineup has more depth from top to bottom, as evidenced by No. 9 hitter Kyle Higashioka’s 17 homers. It leads MLB in batting average and is in the top 10 in on-base, slugging percentage and runs scored. It boasts fewer swing-and-misses than any major league lineup, posting the fewest strikeouts.
Think it doesn’t make sense? Do you want to take a look at one of the hidden reasons why Houston has been good for a decade? This also doesn’t make much impact. Despite baseball fans’ insistence that a strikeout means nothing, whiffing gives a team less of a chance to force the opponent to handle the ball.
Memorization Mookie Wilson’s grounder went between Bill Buckner’s legs In 1986? This wouldn’t have happened if Wilson hadn’t reached out. Putting the ball in play always equates to swinging with your tuck and missing by a foot.
It describes Padres 2023.
That won’t describe their 2024 playoff run.