Once a year for the last five years, I have written on the state of a very sad minor league baseball team that plays in the majors called the San Diego Padres. Recently, I’ve started posting around the All-Star break, but for years I waited until after the break to declare the team dead. But this year, things are different. This year, unless there is a total collapse, this baseball team will have a winning record. It won’t be huge record, probably 2 or 3 games over .500, but for the Padres, that is the mark of a successful season.
In past years, I could point to one or two things that the team or management failed to do that kept the team from succeeding, , except for last year where the team held an indescribable clinic on how to fail. I admit I was wrong last year to lobby for the firing of manager, Buddy Black. The guy who needed to be fired (and was) was general manager, Kevin Towers. The future of this team is better because he is gone.
So why do I say this team will just have a winning record and not win their division? Because this team has pitching, but doesn’t have any power bats and that is a big problem. Pitching arms get tired as the season wears on and they tire rapidly when a team constantly wins games 1-0 or 2-1; as opposed to big wins of 5-1 or 7-4. When your pitchers think that they will lose a baseball game because they give up 2 runs, they make mistakes under pressure that your team can’t recover from. That is the current state of the San Diego Padres.
That said, this team is a good one, but it is not built to play 162 games. Next year, if the new management will add a bat or two without giving up pitching, they can be a serious contender. This year they are a .500 club and that’s good, but next year, they could be better!