Who’s your “Padre”?

 

The San Diego Padres made several blockbuster trades before the beginning of the 2021 season. For example, they acquired 5-time All-Star Yu Darvish from the Cubs and sent prospects to the Tampa Bay Rays for Blake Snell, 2018 AL Cy Young winner. In addition, the Padres acquired Joe Musgrove in a three-team trade. These big moves showed that the Padres would like to challenge the Dodgers for the NL West title.

The Padres are currently 3rd in the NL West. They are 14 games behind the Giants, NL West leader. Also, they are 13 games behind the Dodgers now. Things are not just what the Padres fans expected. How could this happen?

Let’s see the Padres performance each month. In the first month of the 2021 season, the Padres won 15 games and lost 12 games. In April, their pitchers posted a 2.87 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP. A 2.87 ERA was the best in the majors. Meanwhile, the Padres batters hit .237/.324/.366 with 26 home runs and 102 RBI this month.

In May, the Padres won 19 games and lost 9 times. The Padres pitchers had a 2.69 ERA and a 1.12 WHIP. A 2.69 ERA was the second best in the majors. At the same time, their batters were hitting .240/.325/.400 with 31 home runs and 145 RBI. At the end of May, the Padres were 0.5 games behind the NL West leader Giants.

In June, the Padres went 15-12 as they did in April. Their pitching staff had a 4.23 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP. As we can see, their ERA and WHIP both went up this month. Also, their batters slashed .243/.325/.449 with 43 home runs and 111 RBI. After the first three months of the 2021 season, the Padres were 2.5 games behind the NL West leader Giants and 1 game behind the Dodgers.

Things didn't go right in July for the Padres. The Padres won 11 games, but lost 14 times this month. In particular, the Padres and the Rockies played 6 games this month and the Padres lost 4 times. The Padres posted a 4.70 ERA and a 1.44 WHIP this month and opponents hit .270 against Padres pitchers, 5th worst in the majors. However, the Padres hit well with a .260/.336/.431 slash line in July.

Last month, the Padres won 11 games and lost 15 times. In particular, the Padres played against the Rockies at Coors field between August 16 and August 18. The Rockies swept the Padres. The Padres had a 4.44 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP and opponents bat .244 against the Padres pitchers. In addition, the Padres batted only .230/.309/.372 with 24 home runs and 101 RBI in August. A batting average of .230 was the third lowest among 30 MLB teams.

When we look back at the Padres’ performance so far, they lost 11 of 19 games to the Rockies, in the meantime, they lost 5 out of 6 games against the Cubs. Also, the Padres lost 5 out of 7 games against the Brewers. The Padres haven’t gained any advantages against the Rockies and that really makes the difference. The Dodgers defeated the Rockies 11 times and the Rockies lost 9 times to the Giants so far. The Padres will still have 6 games to play against the Dodgers and 10 games to fight against the Giants. These 16 games will be truly important for the Padres. If they can’t secure enough wins against the division rivals, it will be really hard for them to be back in the playoffs since they are only 0.5 games ahead of the Reds in the race of the second wild card.