‘WE’RE NOT THERE YET’
Padres’ offense is performing well below expectations, but team is encouraged by winning 10 of past 16
“I think we started off worse than where we are right now . ... we feel like we’re really good at all cylinders”
There is security in being Bob Melvin.
He knows more about baseball — and certainly about managing a major league team and weathering an MLB season and getting into the playoffs — than most people he is talking to.
So he’s not afraid to acknowledge certain things, such as that he would have enjoyed maybe easing into 2023 with fewer games against the Braves and Brewers and more against the Reds and Rockies.
“Maybe a little bit, yeah,” the Padres manager said Sunday.
That was shortly before his team went out and came within an out of winning a series against the Dodgers.
The Padres left San Diego for a six-game road trip, which begins here today against the Twins, disappointed and encouraged and hopeful.
In Xander Bogaerts’ meandering answers to two questions Sunday night could be heard the reality that all of it can be true for a team finding its way — still not getting consistent production from its supposedly dangerous offense yet winning 10 of its past 16 games.
“We’re feeling really good about ourselves,” Bogaerts said. “… We’re not there yet.”
The Padres know what they should be and still believe they will be that.
“If you’re gonna say with expectations that we have, yeah,” Bogaerts said when asked if the start to the season has been frustrating. “But I think we started off worse than where we are right now. I think we’re still above .500. That’s not the baseball we want to play.
But we started off pretty bad. Our offense wasn’t clicking and we were hoping someone (did) some one night. But right now, we feel like we’re really good at all cylinders. … Everything is solid. It’s just sometimes you lose tough games against a really good team. And if we won (Sunday) everything will be different.”
The Padres have fallen short of those sky-scraping expectations but also pretty much risen to an imposing challenge.
They have gone 18-17 playing the fourth-hardest schedule in baseball based on opponent winning percentage. Just two teams with even a .500 record have played as many games against other .500or-better teams.
The Padres are 11-12 in those
games and 7-5 against sub.-500 teams.
They navigated a stretch of 24 games in 25 days to start the season despite not having one of their best two starting pitchers, one of their top two relievers and with three of their four best hitters either performing poorly or suspended. They went to Mexico City for a long weekend, which in reality was akin to the rest of us having to fit a smog check into a Monday full of imperative business meetings.
“We have not had the most ideal schedule,” Melvin said. “But, you know, it gets you battle-tested early in the season and makes you fight a little harder. Nothing has come easy for us or continues to.”
Melvin also provided a caveat: “But nothing is given against any major league team. We just gotta keep battling, trying to get ourselves right.”
That is obviously important. And it mostly requires offensive improvement.
The Padres are almost certainly not going to get better in the standings without hitting better than .208 with runners in scoring position, which ranks 29th among 30 MLB teams.
They need to score more than two runs a game more often. They are 1-14 when they score fewer than three runs. They are 17-3 when they score three or more runs.
Enhanced scoring probably isn’t going to happen unless Manny Machado and Juan Soto become more consistent at the plate. Their combined .737 OPS ranks in the bottom 10 in MLB for 2-3 hitter combinations.
Winning more close games is generally a hallmark of a good team. The Padres are 3-5 in onerun games, a .375 mark that is tied for sixth lowest in the majors.
Averaging 1.14 runs per game after the sixth inning, tied for the sixth-lowest rate, is no way to thrive. That is evidenced by the Padres’ 2-13 record when trailing
after six innings and 0-1 record when tied after six.
It remains far too early to read much into these numbers. However, it is still fair to say they could (OK, should) be better.
The numbers do also lend credence to the Padres’ assertion they’re actually doing pretty well for a team doing so poorly.
As for the idea of becoming “battle-tested,” as Melvin asserted,
there is precedent that makes his words more than mere hopefulness.
It is essentially the same refrain he employed much of last season as the Padres meandered through a three-month stretch from mid-June to mid-September in which they went 37-42.
“I believe that,” Melvin, who has managed in eight postseasons, said of the power of being
refined by fire. “Especially with the expectations, and if we were just blowing teams out early on, then you get to a point where things don’t go well and ... So sure, I’d like to see our record a little bit better, but we’re having to fight for everything we get right now. And I don’t know that that’s not a good thing.”