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“Padres—End of an Exciting Road”

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The expectations were high.
The accomplishments were many.
The disappointment  was reality.

The Padres were swept out of the National League playoffs, getting battered all night long by the Dodgers, as the best team in the National League ran the second best team, San Diego, out of the postseason, sweeping them 3-straight.

The Friars are good, maybe a top five team in baseball, not bad for a franchise that lost 92-games last year, and 90-plus three years in a row.  But they are no match for all the things the Dodgers are.

LA went (9-4) this year against the Friars.
Over the last 8-years of Dodges dominance in the NL West, they are (95-49) against San Diego.

A tough way to finish the playoff season for Fernando Tatis, who had a bad start  to the night that got worse because of what he was involved in.

Tatis was thrown out trying to steal.  He struck out with the bases loaded.  El Nino also had a throwing error that helped trigger a 5-run Dodges outburst early in the game.

The hole got deeper as the night went longer, when the Padres had to make the game a bullpen day.

Adrian Morejon went 1-2-3 on the mound to start the game, then got banged around.  Craig Stammen couldn’t get thru his inning out of the bullpen.  And the damage mounted after that.

Not having either Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet at the front of the rotation made it impossible to face and beat a team that has been to the World Series.  Not trusting a struggling Chris Paddack complicated the best of five series.

Facing the best the National League had, the Padres lineup disappeared.  It has been a good season for that batting order, up till they had to ‘beat LA’.

Fernando Tatis..(3-14)
Manny Machado..(3-16)
Eric Hosmer..(3-16)
Wil Myers..(1-12)
Jake Cronenworth..(2-12)

They hit just (.183) in the three losses.  When they got guys on base, they didn’t drive them home, going (3-23) with runners in scoring position.

LA had too much veteran hitting and the better pitching.  If the Dodgers had to play the series without Clayton Kershaw-Walker Beuhler in the rotation, it probably would have been different.

Yes San Diego went (37-23) to storm into the playoffs, but there is a stat I want you to know about.

The Padres much improved batting order, put up those numbers against some atrocious pitching staffs, some of the worst in baseball, all out here in the West. So while we enjoyed the brief summer of Padres ball, understand who they beat up, six of the worst ERA staffs in all of the 30-teams in baseball:

(5.59)..Colorado
(5.09)..Angels
(5.02)..Texas
(4.98)..Mariners
(4.84)..Arizona
(4.64)..Giants

But the cruel reality is, the Friars could have matched pitching and hitting against LA, if they had their full starting rotation in place.

Didn’t happen, didn’t really have a chance.

Cody Bellinger’s home run and home run robbing catch in Game 2-of the series changed everything.  Of course Mookie Betts had 7-hits and did damage too.  The Padres could just never match them.

So the Padres come home.  There won’t be a standing ovation from the fans, because there were no fans in the stands.  It’s too bad, because if they had played a full 162-game schedule, the team would have drawn 3M in this melting pot of a marketplace.

The Padres were damn good most nights they played, but not good enough the last three nights when the other team was the Dodgers.

Bring back the Brown was fun.  Dodges Blue was better.

Looking forward to next year when the umpires yell ‘Play Ball’.

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