San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
UPLIFTING ALL OF US
Imagine the summer of 2020 without the Padres. Or more specifically, these Padres.
Consider the salve of Slam Diego during our never-ending Groundhog Day, a meat grinder of isolation, health fears, financial bruising, political trash talking and racial divide. The Padres bat-flipped, believed to the final out and brought us together after half a century of painfully rare payoffs.
Steaming back in the NL Wild Card Series against the Cardinals, trailing in two out of three games and splicing together a pitching Conga line the likes of which postseason baseball has never seen, restored routinely unrewarded faith and fueled personal gas tanks on fumes.
When closer Trevor Rosenthal mowed down the side in the ninth Friday night to seal a 4-0 victory that unlocked an improbable matchup against the rival Dodgers, in an improbable place, during an improbable time, downtown San Diego roared. The streets ringing Petco Park pulsed to the soundtrack of car horns and voices growing hoarse by the second.
The moment was thrilling for a city jilted by the NFL’S Chargers and starved for collective, connecting commonality.
As we screamed at each other about face coverings, worried during the quiet of night about loved ones and bemoaned the relentless of it all, electric shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. was setting our compass: Time to chase The Big Cake.
It was a bold, preseason proclamation for a franchise mired in one of baseball’s longest playoff droughts with a pitiful five postseason appearances … ever.
Tatis, his golden dreadlocks seemingly in perpetual motion, stirred something inside a city desperately seeking a spark.
Padres vs. Dodgers
NL Division Series (Best-of-5), Time TBA
Tuesday: Game 1, Globe Life Field, Arlington, Texas
On the air: FS1; 97.3-FM, 860-AM (Spanish)
Swiss Skydiver wins Preakness.
A look at the NLDS vs. Dodgers.
Patriots vs. Chiefs postponed.
Football schedule announced.
He made it OK to dream, day by day and out by out. He made it OK to prance and be proud in a lockeddown world.
At a time when the word contagious produced dread, he used it to feed hope.
The $300 million man, Manny Machado became the player his paycheck said he could be. Wil Myers hammered baseballs, making a case for comeback player of the year. Eric Hosmer seemed downright rejuvenated. Jake Cronenworth, a 26-year-old sensation out of nowhere, made the NL Rookie of the Year award all but his.
The jaw-dropping Game 2, an 11-9 victory where multiple homers by Tatis and Myers caused them to be mentioned in the same breath as Ruth and Gehrig, threatened to trigger cardiac events from Carlsbad to Chula Vista.
Perhaps the most stunning puzzle piece was the bullpen, shaky for a stretch before blossoming into a multiheaded Hydra with one arm as perplexing as the next. The last time a team used nine pitchers for a nine-inning shutout, as the Padres did in clinching Game 3, was 1901, according to MLB records. It had never happened in the postseason.
Losing in the opening round would represent big-picture progress, but feel like a deflating whimper at the wire. Instead, the thundering throng at the corner of Tony Gwynn Drive and Trevor Hoffman Way waved banners and chanted “Beat LA!” through enough smiles to span the Coronado Bridge.
General Partner and lead investor Peter Seidler said he woke up to 77 text messages the morning after the Padres clinched their first playoff spot since 2006. Here’s hoping he signed up for the unlimited plan after what his team did to stiffarm the club’s postseason thorn known as the Cardinals.
The Dodgers, the best team in baseball to this point, might grind the Padres into red Texas dust when the NLDS begins Tuesday in Arlington. They’re scary good, after all. Then again, they might not because the Padres — pitching surgery survivors and baseball’s run-scoring, comeback kings in 2020 — are uniquely scary, as well.
One team will play under the weight of unrealized postseason expectations dating back to the late 1980s. The other, the Padres, can play loose with each moment as they gather icing for Tatis’ baking project. That type of real, legitimate and thrilling belief is the exact Rx order San Diego needed during times so twisted we wear masks into banks without anyone batting an eye.
Lose All-star closer Kirby Yates out of the gate? No problem.
Lose Hosmer to a finger fracture? Call Cronenworth on Line 2.
Lose starting pitchers Dinelson Lamet and Mike Clevinger? Next man up.
The resilience throughout offered a lesson to cling to amid the uncertainty of our unsteadied days. Fight, scratch and claw. Trust in those around you. Never shrink. Never quit.
That extends to Seidler and Executive Chairman Ron Fowler, as well. Fans grumbled about the time it took to polish the diamond we’re seeing now. There’s no doubt about their commitment, though, after the millions upon millions spent in the international market, on big contracts and the ATM ramifications of a historic spree at the trade deadline.
Is there anyone who wants to win as much as those two, spending and stretching at a time when ticket windows and beer stands sit shuttered?
The Padres arrived. For San Diego, right on time.
bryce.miller@sduniontribune.com