New-look Padres club excited for home debut

SAN DIEGO — It’s been a long time since San Diego Padres fans had this many reasons to be optimistic.

Matt Kemp is hitting third, Justin Upton is batting cleanup and Craig Kimbrel is closing. A massive new video board in left field will be showing it all in HD.

The Padres play their home opener Thursday afternoon, when Ian Kennedy is scheduled to start against Tim Hudson and the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants.

Fans got a sneak preview last Saturday during a FanFest that included an exhibition game against the Mexico City Red Devils.

The players have noticed how hungry the fans are for a winning season.

“It’s amazing to see the atmosphere out here at Petco,” said Kemp, one of several former allstars added to the roster during general manager A.J. Preller’s aggressive off-season revamp.

“It says a lot,” Kemp added. “I’ve been here the whole off-season and just been hearing how excited the Padres fans have been. I didn’t think it would be quite this much but just from driving to the stadium and seeing everybody outside waiting to get into the ballpark was pretty amazing.”

Preller added Kemp, Upton, Wil Myers, Will Middlebrooks, Derek Norris and James Shields in an off-season frenzy. Preller was busy right up until hours before opening day, adding Kimbrel and Upton’s older brother, Melvin, in another blockbuster deal.

The Padres opened the season with three games at Los Angeles, Kemp’s former team.

“We’ve been talking about it all spring, since December, all the players are excited about playing in San Diego and I know the fans are really excited, the most excited they’ve been in a while,” Kennedy said.

The Padres finished at the bottom of the majors last year with a .226 average, .292 on-base percentage and 535 runs. Their 109 homers were the second fewest in the baseball.

Now they’ve got players who have hit well at spacious Petco Park, albeit as visitors.

“I’ve always liked Petco Park,” Kemp said.