First of the Year
Hello from Atlanta! We left San Diego after the day game against the D-backs on Tuesday and I got settled into my bed in the hotel here around 2:30am that night/Wednesday morning.
I often get questions from friends, family and fans about how I deal with all the time zone changes and I have one simple rule: wake up.
If I can get myself out of bed at a normal-ish time the next morning, I’m good to go. So an alarm was set and I now consider myself to be on Eastern Time.
This is the first of 13 (I think) regular season road trips for the Padres, the shortest of which lasts for three days. The longest? 11 days. And there’s three of those.
I decided a fun feature for the newsletter may be a monthly travel preview, so let’s get that started with a video of our April adventures (click to watch):
As you can see, it’s a busy month! San Diego to Atlanta; Atlanta to New York; New York to San Diego; San Diego to Phoenix; Phoenix to Chicago; Chicago to Mexico City; Mexico City to San Diego.
We’re beating up on the odometer, for sure. In fact, according to MLB, the Padres will travel 44,208 miles this season—2nd most in the National League and 4th most in baseball. The most-traveled teams this year? Oakland, Seattle, SF, the Padres and the Angels. West Coast/best coast, but also we’re so far away from everyone else, haha.
This trip is fun in that we get to see two of the three contending teams in the NL East (Philly being the other, tough start not withstanding). I like stuff like this. I won’t go crazy for the “measuring stick” talk—it’s just too early in the season for that—but I like good baseball and getting the Padres together with both the Braves and Mets should lead to some (very) good baseball.
The weather forecast is not ideal, but we’ll take it as it comes1. Might get lucky, as it seemed like we did almost everywhere (except Cleveland) last year.
The second April trip is also fun, for different reasons. The Mexico City games against the Giants should be really special, and Wrigley is always cool, even if it will likely be quite cold.
Couple other notes on this first full month’s slate of games:
Putting travel aside for a moment, the next homestand is really fun, too. The Brewers come in and then the Braves—so a couple opportunities to see that team early on. Plus, a fun 1998 celebration/Hoffman jersey giveaway while they’re in town.
The ONLY road games against an NL West opponent all month are those four games in AZ to start the next trip. Same thing in May, just one road series inside the division (LA). Unusual under the old schedule, but not the new one.
After yesterday’s off day, the Padres play 17 games in 17 days (putting aside the possibility of rainouts), all against teams that I would consider super solid (MIL, AZ) or major contenders (ATL, NYM).
Jacob
In what seems to be a multi-annual tradition around Petco Park these days, the Padres and INF Jake Cronenworth announced a new contract/extension this past week that will keep #9 around for a long time to come.
If I may…personally, this thrills me. Jake is such a wonderful guy and as I looked around the press conference room on Saturday, it seemed like the entire team (in addition to Bob Melvin) was jammed in there with reporters to show their support. Every time I looked over at Manny, he was smiling wide, and I know all Padre fans were, too.
Jake’s heroics in the NLDS against the Dodgers last year obviously jump to mind when we discuss his Padre tenure, but it’s the start of his journey in San Diego that really makes me shake my head in wonder. Had Eric Hosmer not had his somewhat mysterious stomach issue at the start of the shortened 2020 season, would this all have unfolded the way it has? Jake, a fringe guy on the expanded roster that July, basically slotted in to start for Hosmer at first base and in a week, it became impossible to take him out of the lineup (he went 8-for-24 with 2 homers, a double and 3 triples while playing sparkling defense). The rest is history.
Maybe he would have found his way into the lineup another way, but who knows. Baseball and life are crazy that way. Congrats to Jake.
And Congrats to You
As I noted, I was looking around the room during the press conference, and one of the thoughts I kept having was that it’s never been easier for a fan to buy a jersey or shirsey with a player’s name and number on the back.
For years, outside of 19 and 51, it felt like something of a dicey investment to drop good money on an item that was specific to a player.
Now, you can feel confident in a Manny jersey. Or a Jake. Or Fernando. Or Xander. Or Musgrove. Or Darvish. Or…well, you get my point.
I know I keep saying it…but these are the good old days.
Runs!
Let’s have some fun with numbers.
After a quiet first two games at the plate to start the season, the Padres flexed some muscle in the last four, homering nine times, including of course, the historic back-to-back shots by David Dahl and Ha-seong Kim to win it on Monday night.
On paper, this looks like a team that should score a ton of runs. And possibly more than any Padre team ever has.
The most runs the Padres have ever scored in a season is 795, which was back in 1997 (would not have guessed that). That’s an average of 4.9 runs per game.
Last year, the Padres scored 705 runs—13th in MLB—for an average of 4.4 rpg.
You have to figure this year’s team has a shot to be the first Padre team to ever score 800 or more runs in a season.
For reference, the Dodgers led the NL with 847 last year. The Yankees paced the AL with 807. No other team reached 800 (the Braves were 2nd in the NL with 789 runs scored…or 58 fewer runs than the Dodgers).
As for the homers, the 2019 Pads hit a franchise-record 219. Eight guys hit 10 or more that season, as Hunter Renfroe (33) and Manny (32) led the way (Tatis, Hosmer, and Franmil Reyes all had 20 ore more, as well). Could this year’s team top that total? Certainly possible.
Couple of fun little things to keep an eye on as the season rolls along. Not as fun as the win total, of course (that record? 98 in ‘98).
MLB Debuts
There are few things in baseball I’m a sucker for more than a Major League debut. Just knowing the amount of blood, sweat, tears and luck that it takes for someone to reach the Major Leagues is enough to make your head explode.
For the first time since 2015, everyone on the Padres Opening Day roster had some Major League experience, so we haven’t had a debut yet this year. You’ve got to figure it’ll happen at some point, of course, and when it does, that player will have a special patch on his uniform shirt sleeve:
Our buddy Chris Creamer over at SportsLogos.net has the details. Neat stuff.
Question Time
After our first week of games with all the new rules, it seemed fitting to have a question related to all of that. From Sue (edited for length and clarity):
Q: How do the umpires keep track of how many times the pitcher has thrown over or how many times the batter has asked for time out? In general, it seems simple but when things are happening fast, I would think they need some kind of official tracking.
A: This is a great question and I have an answer! Or most of an answer.
In regards to the number of step-offs the pitcher makes during a plate appearance, if you’re at a game and particularly eagle-eyed, you may see the umpires making hand signals to remind each other of this. After a pitcher steps off, the umpires are sticking their fingers out, kind of like they would for a 1-1 count, but instead of holding them up, they are holding their arms and hands off to their sides. This is to show one another that there’s been one disengagement used.
As for the batter’s lone timeout, I don’t thinnnnk there’s a sign for that, but theoretically it’s easier to keep track of because it’s just the one. Will keep an eye out, though.
One last note on the pitch clock. After Manny’s infraction and subsequent ejection on Tuesday, our buddy (and Padres Special Assistant) Mark Loretta posted a brilliant idea to Twitter:
This makes an incredible amount of sense. You see stuff like this in other sports, too. Don’t be shocked if this is one of the in-season tweaks that gets made. And if and when that happens, you better believe we’ll be calling it the Loretta Rule. Lo Knows.
And Lastly…
Just a quick thank you to everyone who sent bday wishes yesterday. It was legitimately overwhelming but super appreciated. You guys are the best.
Much love and enjoy the rain delays I mean games.
Also, just in case this sort of thing is of interest to you, both the Friday (Apple TV+) and Sunday (ESPN) games this weekend are national TV only. As a reminder, Tony and I will be there for you on the radio.