LOS ANGELES -- The Padres always knew this stretch on their schedule would be a grind. Twenty-six games in 27 days? A 17-game stretch within that, featuring 14 divisional games and 14 road games? All 17 of those games against National League contenders?
It was never going to be easy. It was always going to feature some bumps in the road.
But at this point, this feels like more than a speed bump. The Padres have dropped 10 of 14, including three straight this week against the rival Dodgers in Los Angeles.
“There’s a lot of season left,” said Fernando Tatis Jr. “But we have to win ballgames if we want to reach our goal. We just need to be better.”
It might feel like their season is teetering. Just to be clear, that’s hyperbole. In the first half last year, the Padres were worse. They started last year 50-50 -- then finished with 93 wins before hosting a Wild Card Series.
There are reasons for optimism this year, too. The Padres have a beleaguered rotation, and they’ve spent a chunk of their season without All-Star center fielder Jackson Merrill. Yet they’re holding on to a Wild Card spot in a ferocious NL.
On the flip side, however, most of those injury question marks don’t have obvious answers. Merrill is on the concussion IL and will be back in due time. But those rotation concerns haven’t alleviated themselves. There’s little clarity on Michael King (pinched nerve in right shoulder), and Yu Darvish (right elbow inflammation) still hasn’t pitched this season.
Not every concern of these Padres is tied to injuries. Xander Bogaerts entered Wednesday’s game hitting .183 this month with a .464 OPS. He proceeded to lace a game-tying double into the left-center-field gap in the ninth inning -- only for the Dodgers’ Will Smith to walk it off minutes later in the bottom half.
“One of the few positive things I do, it don’t even last a couple minutes,” said a sullen Bogaerts afterward. “Will Smith comes in right there and homers right away -- it’s brutal.”
With Bogaerts struggling (and Merrill out), the deficiencies at the bottom of the Padres’ lineup are even more pronounced. They seem to mount rallies, only for those rallies to peter out in the bottom third with very few levers for manager Mike Shildt to pull.
The good news on that front? The Padres can address those deficiencies in the coming weeks via trade. They’re actively searching for outfield help, though the reality is, they probably need more than one bat.
Compared to years past, the Padres don’t have the same level of high-caliber prospects they’d be willing to deal. But they also aren’t trying to land Juan Soto and Josh Hader this Trade Deadline. They need a left fielder, a bench bat and a back-of-the-rotation starter. The price tag shouldn’t be all that steep.
How much longer can general manager A.J. Preller afford to wait? What level of urgency is needed? Those questions are complex.
First, it takes two sides to make a deal, and the market hasn’t begun to heat up, given the volume of teams remaining in contention. Second, well, what’s the objective here? The NL West feels like it might be slipping from the Padres' grasp. The gap to the Dodgers is now six games. Plus, the Padres would need to leapfrog the Giants, who just acquired Rafael Devers.
If the goal is exclusively to win the division, the Padres cannot afford to wait any longer. But they currently occupy a Wild Card spot, if the postseason were to begin today. The endgame isn’t merely winning the division.
One of Shildt’s core tenets is his insistence that his teams get better over the course of the season. The 2024 Padres lived it, and it’s clear he expects the same from this year’s group.
“When you play close games, and you don’t win a couple, it really hurts,” Shildt said. “The scoreboard at the end doesn’t lie, and I have to answer for it. But I have complete confidence that … before you know it, we’ll start to reel off three, four, five, six, seven series in a row.
“Right now, we haven’t [won] as consistently on this road trip. There’s not a guy in there that is happy about it. It hurts. But I can also tell you, there’s not a guy in there that has any doubt either.”
Still, this year’s team is not last year’s team. This year’s team has questions about its depth and its rotation that the 2024 team did not have.
There remain avenues to answer those questions. It’s mid-June. The season is not teetering, no matter how a few June losses to the Dodgers may feel.
Some perspective: In 2021, the Padres swept L.A. in June and felt ascendant, then collapsed and finished below .500. In 2022, the Dodgers won every regular-season series against San Diego, then dropped the NLDS. Last year, the Padres won their first season series against L.A. in 14 years -- then came up short in October.
Clearly, there’s plenty of season to go for these scores to be settled. But you couldn’t possibly argue with Tatis: Right now, the Padres just need to be better.