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The Padres open a 3-game series at Coors Field against the Rockies on Monday night. Colorado is in last place in the National League West and has already traded away slugging 1 st baseman CJ Cron. As usual, the Rocks are rolling to a losing record. Which makes them extremely dangerous to the Friars, and if you keep reading you will see mind-boggling numbers to prove it. San Diego just completed a 3-game sweep of the Texas Rangers, who sit in 1 st place in the AL West and own baseball’s highest scoring offense. The Padres held that club to four runs over three games, something no other team has come close to doing all year. What’s great is that’s it not a big surprise the Padres did it. They have that kind of talent. What’s frustrating is they do it against good teams but not bad teams, and that is the reason we are in the predicament we’re in now. Great teams beat everyone, but they ESPECIALLY beat inferior opponents. Even the Braves and Dodgers, owners of the best records in the National League, own a combined .641 winning percentage against teams with losing records while playing .589 ball against winners. If you’re looking for a difference in the Padres and the rest of the teams in the Wild Card hunt (and there are A LOT of them) this is it, and the numbers will very likely surprise you. The Padres have done well against the better teams in baseball. They’re 22-22 against opponents currently holding playoff spots and 38-37 overall against teams that do not have losing records (including a 2-1 mark against Cleveland, who’s even at 53-53). Here’s the problem. They’re 14-17 against teams with losing records. Yes, three games UNDER .500 against everyone who is under .500. The reason why is anyone’s guess and there’s not enough bandwidth available to run through all the potential scenarios so instead we’ll stick with some measurables. Let’s look at the other teams the Padres are competing for a Wild Card spot with, including the Reds, who are currently in 1 st place in the NL Central but just a half game up on the Brewers. Listed first is their record against teams under .500. In parenthesis is how they’ve fared against opponents with a winning mark: Cincinnati Reds = 25-17 (33-32) San Francisco Giants = 27-22 (31-26) Miami Marlins = 27-19 (30-30) Milwaukee Brewers = 21-14 (36-35) Philadelphia Phillies = 22-13 (34-36) Arizona Diamondbacks = 26-16 (30-34) Chicago Cubs = 28-13 (25-39) See a pattern here? All of them are much better against the bad teams than they are against the good teams, with the exception of the Giants, who are five games over .500 against both categories but that’s a statistical outlier. Combined these teams have a .607 winning percentage against bad ball clubs. If the Padres were even playing at that average, they’d be 18-13 against teams with losing records, which would put them at 56-50 overall and 1.0 game out of the last Wild Card spot. Then there would be NO QUESTION what they’re doing at the deadline. They’d be buying and gearing up for another pennant race instead of sitting 5.0 games out with a ton of teams in front of them and trying to figure out the best option moving forward. San Diego has 56 games left to play. 18 of them are against teams with losing records, and most of them are in last place who’ve given up on the season (six with the Cardinals, six with the Rockies, and three against the historically inept A’s). If they can figure out how to be dominant against bad competition, then they have a chance to play into October. If not, and they miss the playoffs, they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves. LISTEN: With NBC 7 San Diego’s Darnay Tripp and Derek Togerson behind the mic, will cover all things San Diego Padres. Interviews, analysis, behind-the-scenes…the ups, downs, and everything in between.
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