Padres Suddenly Have More Questions Than Answers After Brutal Homestand: Column

The Padres might be happy to be bailing from Petco Park for a week.

Then again, look what they’re heading into.

With their bats continuing to sputter, the Padres started their recently completed homestand by jockeying with rival Los Angeles for first place in the National League West. They ended it tied for second place with the Arizona Diamondbacks, 4.5 games behind the hated Dodgers, after going just 3-6 and losing the final four games.

Oh, and Fernando Tatis Jr. is still 0-for-2026 in home runs.

So where to start?

As former Friars manager Bruce Bochy was fond of saying, there’s still a lot of ball to be played (of course, Boch would say that with one out to go in the ninth inning of the season finale.).

That’s true. It’s only late May. But the big question is, how much longer will the Padres continue to play this style of ball before they turn it around, as they keep threatening to do?

Remember last year, when the Padres had chances early and late to catch and pass the Dodgers in the division race, and didn’t? They finished second and were consigned to a wild-card series at the Chicago Cubs, which was largely forgettable except for the playoff-record 104.5 mph heater thrown by Mason Miller in the Game 2 win.

The Padres are the perfect team for spawning overreactions, and there are a lot after the last homestand.

They excited the faithful by beating the Dodgers 1-0 on the strength of Miguel Andjuar’s solo homer in the first inning of the opener of the first series between the rivals this season to overtake Los Angeles by one-half game. But they lost the next two, including 4-0 in the series finale with Shohei Ohtani throwing five innings of three-hit ball.

Losing one of three against the Athletics was probably inexcusable because of how bad the AL West is. The Athletics came in leading their division at one game over .500 and have since surrendered it to the Mariners in a division where all the teams are under .500.

Then came Kyle Schwarber, record-setting ace Cristopher Sánchez and the rest of the Philadelphia Phillies, who swept the Padres in a series that started and ended with 3-0 shutouts. In between, the Padres at least scored some runs in losing 4-3.

Schwarber, predictably, homered in the series opener, like he often does at Petco Park. Then he had a key RBI single in the series finale, providing more scoring on one swing than the Padres got off Sánchez, who pitched seven brilliant innings to extend his scoreless innings streak to 44.2 and break the 115-year old Phillies franchise record held by Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander, who had a 41-inning scoreless innings in 1911.

The left-hander didn't think he had his best stuff, but he still dominated a Padres lineup that went 0-for-20 with runners in scoring position and stranded 19 in the series, while striking out 32 times.

“We had him, dude,” Manny Machado told reporters after driving two balls to the wall, only to have them caught, including a circus catch by center fielder Justin Crawford. “We had really good at-bats. Overall, great at-bats. Just a better pitcher.”

The problem is, they’ll be seeing that pitcher again next week in Philly.

The Padres were 2-for-46 with RISP in the nine-game homestand, were shut out three times and scored 19 runs.

“There’s a little credit to their pitching,” rookie manager Craig Stammen told reporters. “But we’ve also got to figure out a way to be better in those situations. Runners in scoring position, we’re searching for that big hit. Maybe sometimes we’re trying to do a little bit too much. But we’ve got to stay within our approach and hit some line drives.”

The Padres’ offense was so anemic that they never had a lead against the Phillies and therefore never got to bring on Miller.

That wasn’t lost on Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly.

It was mentioned that teams are mindful of the possibility of facing the fireballer.

“We’re like that, too,” Mattingly said. “We try to stay out of that situation. We talked about it before the series. With their club, you want leads going into the final innings. But you’ve got to hold them. Our bullpen did a nice job of keeping games where they’re at. They were all close games. It’s not like there were any blowouts here. We were able to keep them down this series. We’re going to LA and they’re going to come right back. We’ll see what happens in Philly.”

The Padres play at Philly Tuesday through Thursday, so they’ll face Sánchez again.

Before that, though, they’ll visit the Washington Nationals, who have one of the most potent offenses in the majors. The Padres are on the other end of the spectrum.

Leading the way for the Nationals will be James Wood and CJ Abrams, who four years ago were top prospects included in the haul the Padres sent to Washington for Juan Soto, who’s long gone.

Oh, and have you heard that Tatis still hasn’t hit a home run this year? His power outage has now reached 54 games.

Lucky for him, and the Padres, there’s still a lot of ball to be played.

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