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“A FEEL GOOD CELEBRATION”
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Somewhere up above-Peter Seidler is looking down from the heavens smiling.
His Padres are back in post season play for the 4th time in 6-years.
The clubhouse scene was pretty raucous.
Guys wearing goggles. Plastic bags everywhere around the lockers. Players wearing raincoats. TV broadcasters looking like they were going skua diving.
Guys with no shirts. Guys spraying champagne everywhere. A baseball beer blast
Manny Machado stuffing his pockets with beers. Hugging then dousing GM-AJ Preller.
You could really sense, getting to post-season, was like lifting a thousand pound weight off every player’s shoulder.
Hugs-screams-chants-F bombs from players, who grinded their way thru a season of streaks to earn a shot to be a wildcard team next Tuesday.
Was not easy, this franchise with a (211M) payroll, going thru terrible times.
A battered pitching staff finding enough grit to get thru starts before turning it over to a brilliant bullpen
A batting order, short on power, getting contributions from late arrivals at the trading deadline, to make enough hits to win enough games.
A manager with big time baseball IQ-invoking old time strategy in games, that virtually no one else does, bunts, sacrifices, suicide squeezes, hit and runs, double steals and all.
The scoreboard remained lit after the game, blinking lights ready ‘Playoffs Baby’. It should also read ‘Thank you San Diego for 67-sellouts this year’.
Who knows if they have enough starting pitching to get quality innings next week when they play the best of 3-games at Wrigley Field against the Cubs? Who knows if playing at the ‘Friendly confines’ will invoke a bunch of HRs from guys who can knock some out-especially in that yard?
Who knows how battered and tired the Cubs appear to be, and if playing all three at home will be the tonic to jump start them again.
The Padres, who have given us electric moments, in games and series vs the Dodgers, in getting to the NLCS with the Phillies, and making Petco Park a destination point, have more work to be done.
You close your eyes and you see Tatis’ big hits and rocket throws; Machado’s amazing defensive plays; the kid Merrill in CF; the excitement of spray hitting Arraez; the bulldog stare-glare of Pivetta; all things electric from Suarez; the sounds of ‘Holy Sheets’ and ‘Beat LA’ bouncing around the yard; Laureano’s circus catches; O’Hearn’s shots; Fermin’s glove and spunk; Miller’s velocity out of the pen and Sheets career year coming off the street.
And think of this. With the last minute choke jobs by the Dodgers and the Cubs, the Padres first cup of coffee this morning finds them just a game and a half out of first place in both the NL-West and in the NL-wildcard race. Maybe there will be another celebration to come by the end of the weekend.
A cross section of a super summer of baseball that included wins-losses-sellouts-Gallagher Square and so much more.
It’s been an electric 5-years of baseball at the Intersection of Tony and Trevor Way in the Gaslamp quarter.
Not sure I would call this the ‘Golden Era’ of Padres baseball. Think I will reserve that term till this group makes it to the World Series. But I will say it is a ‘Red-White-Blue’ era for America’s Past-Time in America’s Finest City.
Job well done for the Friars.
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