Padres Revamped Team Will Need to Figure Everything Out Fast Come September

After winning a very fought out series against the San Francisco Giants, the Padres all around will need to keep up the pace in order to put themselves in a comfortable spot.

One of our desired wishes as a fanbase came true. A.J. Preller pulling off his magic in acquiring Juan Soto with the fantastic additional pieces of Josh Bell, Brandon Drury and Josh Hader before the trade deadline. The other wish has not panned out just yet. That wish would be in the newly revamped Padres team clicking right out the gate and surging the team into being a serious Wild Card threat as they look to never be out of any game until every out is recorded. Since getting these key pieces, it has resulted in the Friars getting swept embarrassingly by the Los Angeles Dodgers and thankfully winning a difficult series against the San Francisco Giants that could have gone south real quick.

So, what is off for this team in the dog days of August? Personally, I would now have to put some blame the pitching at all in this series. But I do not put some blame with Hader doing what he did with the blown save in the second game. It was very frustrating to see Hader give up walks and potentially tipping his pitches again to the Giants that smacked him back in Oracle Park when he was a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. However, Hader pitched an inning for a total of 21 pitches in the first game which resulted in a 1-0 loss. That was a non-save situation to where I believe manager Bob Melvin made a poor decision; which is very rare. So Hader was already used for a decent load previously. Thankfully enough, captain Machado brought his clutch genetics to the plate and had the Friar Faithful leave relieved. But two poor starts from Sean Manaea make it very frustrating to watch his performance as of late. It happens and you just have to hope for Manaea to get in his groove just as Snell has his past several recent starts. To defend the pitching performance, it has carried San Diego for their record through August arguably. They just need to be at their best when it comes to the divisional baseball games upcoming as well as the postseason if they reach.

On the bright side on this series, we did see the bats generate runs in big ways with Kim's key double in the eighth in the second game that led to Manny's heroics. In addition to that, we saw the Padres erase a 4-0 deflect after the team found ways to rally up and get on base for the heart of the lineup to take full advantage of every opportunity. We also saw the team blow a 6-4 lead but come back with a 7-run 6th inning in that same game thanks to a Drury three-run home run that started off the rally. That offensive explosion is what we like to see come in many situations! One after another, batter up and on base and making pitchers pay for their mistakes in location. That is beautiful baseball!

I completely understand you will not win every game with the team scoring so many runs. Must be realistic on this. However, this much talent cannot be losing ball games in ugly fashion and getting shutout within back-to-back games in the Dodgers finale and Giants opener. This team is very well aware that there are no excuses now. They have a decent-sized window to contend, but rather win early to shut out the haters and media and me. (I say that with a laugh!)

The Friars do have one of the easiest August schedules left, with September being more challenging. Left this month includes Soto's return to D.C. and the Nationals coming to San Diego that following week. So twice with the Nationals and others being the Marlins, Guardians (Who have played well lately and are indeed above .500), the Giants again and the Royals. The Friars have the 18th hardest schedule out of 30 teams which is pretty solid. Not too easy, but not too difficult to create much tension. As for September, of course that results in some fun divisional battles. This team luckily came off a series win against the Giants which could have potentially been ugly if it was not for Machado's heroics and the Padres offensive outburst in the finale.

A new podcast episode will be released Thursday morning in regards to what happened this past week now that we have more games with the new team un and running. Stay tuned for new episodes every Wednesday and of course, new blogs after every series.