Image credit: © Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
Translated by Pepe Latorre
When I was little I loved staying up late watching TV. It didn’t matter what they were throwing. With the help of the now forgotten Teleguía or by changing channels I found something. However, many times, even when I found a show I liked and actually followed with interest (the way a preteen can), I would end up falling asleep. Reruns of old TV shows, a classic movie, SportsCenter with Stuart Scott… whatever. I enjoyed it but in the end I fell asleep.
To be clear, this hasn’t just happened to me, far from it. Many of us go through this phase. I still do it from time to time! And the San Diego Padres have also done it in 2024.
Everything was going very well considering the situation San Diego was in at the time of the All-Star Game. They were never very bad, but mediocrity and determination to stay at .500 It was tedious. Then All-Star weekend arrived…and no one in baseball had a better record than the Padres, 43-20.
Everything started to go well for the Padres. Jackson Merrill submitted his own candidacy for National League Rookie of the Year. A series of clutch homers and a .314/.349/.596 line in 61 games in the second half made him look in the face of Paul Skenesthe favorite. Manny Machado He was not far behind, amassing 16 homers in that span of time while hitting .286/.333/.543. In September, when Fernando Tatis Jr. Returning from a long-term leg injury, he hit seven homers in 22 games, giving the Padres another tough bat to contend with down the stretch. and suddenly Jurickson Profar he had become an All-Star in his eleventh season in the Majors. All after a miserable 2023 that spent mainly in Colorado.
The truth is that there were few bad hitters in the Padres’ starting lineup, even the new catcher Kyle Higashiokahit 17 home runs. Donovan Solano He signed a Minor League contract with San Diego in mid-April and, like a metronome, matched the .760 OPS he posted in 134 games last year with the Twins. It wasn’t a season-saving move, of course, but it was a good, productive player that the Padres simply decided to add because “Hey, why not?”
It didn’t seem very fair that while the Padres were making everything fall into place and found themselves with a well-balanced offense, the planets were also aligning for starting pitching. Michael King He stood out as an ace after arriving from New York in the important transfer of the season in which they got rid of Juan Soto. He posted a 2.07 ERA and .565 OPS against from early July onward. He earned a Game 1 start of the playoffs. If we consider that he shared equipment with Dylan Cease, Joe Musgrove y Yu Darvishit was no small feat. Darvish, in particular, was away for more than three months to attend to a personal matter and when he returned he hadn’t missed a beat. The bullpen was, before the transfer market closed, a toss-up. AJ Preller corrected and took over Jason Adam y Tanner Scott. They are two good arms that covered the deficiencies in the final innings.
It was impossible for them to take the National League West Division title from the Dodgers, but they established themselves in October as one of the most in-form teams in the competition. If given the opportunity to face Los Angeles again, as they did in the 2022 National League Division Series, they had a rotation to make the injury-ravaged Dodgers jealous. And their lineup was capable of taking on anyone.
“Fonzie” Fonzarelli managed to escape from a complicated situation without breaking a sweat.
While acknowledging that the Braves had their own problems, it was almost comical to see how easily the Padres disposed of a seasoned playoff team in the Wild Card Series. King swept Atlanta with a dozen strikeouts in a 4-0 victory.
It was a similar story the next day, when Higashioka (also arriving from New York) hit a homer for the second straight game. This began a barrage of hits before Max Friedthe former World Series hero. The final score, 5-4, never felt even because Atlanta’s runs came down to the wire. The Padres sent the Braves home and made their date with the Dodgers.
The Nameless Man has just freed a family from some corrupt smugglers in the city. They have sworn revenge on him.
A 7-5 loss at Dodger Stadium in the first game only dampened San Diego’s spirits. However, they hit him hard Jack Flaherty to the Dodger bullpen in the second game. They had a moment to recover when fans started throwing things at Profar (who had challenged them during an earlier homer steal). Machado He called the Padres in the dugout during the eighth inning. It’s a moment that would surely appear in the documentary “Merrill-y We Roll Along: The Story of the 2024 Padres.” It is surely a project in preparation for its potential first championship.
The Padres’ good spirits continued in game three, this time at Petco Park. They countered the early homer of Mookie Betts with six runs in the second inning. It was thanks, among other things, to an emphatic two-run bomb by Tatis. Teoscar Hernández’s grand slam scared the fans a little, but King overcame his fear and with help from the bullpen held the Dodgers scoreless for the final six innings in a 6-5 victory. The fastest pitch of the day was the last: Robert Suárez threw 101.3 miles to strike out Gavin Lux.
As happened in 2022, the Padres had a 2-1 lead in the series. They had everything in sight to eliminate their powerful division rivals at home in Game 4. A date with the Mets in the Championship Series was close.
Stuart Scott said that Kenny Lofton “as cool as the other side of the pillow” when he saw him make a spectacular catch to save a game.
As for the other side of the pillow, it is a comfortable, relaxing and calming place. Maybe too relaxing.
And so I went to the Realm of Dreams, without remembering exactly what “Fonzie” Fonzarelli said or if those smugglers found the Man With No Name. Or the result of that game between the Reds and the Marlins that ended in the final minutes of SportsCenter.
Just like the Padres’ offense did after Game 3. There is more than justified criticism of the Padres’ strategy. Mike Shildt by starting Dylan Cease on three days’ rest in Game 4. It was an 8-0 disaster and the game quickly slipped away from the Padres. Maybe Darvish pitched more than recommended in a Game 5 that was do-or-die. In the seventh inning Teoscar hit a one-run homer while Adam, Scott and Suárez were all rested and available.
However, these points are ultimately footnotes. The truth is that the Padres never scored again after Tatis’ homer in Game 3. After failing to score in the series-tying game, the potent lineup of Machado, Tatis, Profar, Merrill and Co. was limited to two measly singles in the loss of Game 5. The Dodgers completely dried them up with Johnny Wholestaff in Game 4 and then came a five-inning shutout of Yoshinobu Yamamoto. There was no response to Evan Phillips, Alex Vesia, Michael Kopech y Blake Treinenwho retired all 12 Padres bats they faced in Game 5.
Postseason baseball is capricious. We have known this for a long, long time. But it’s still pretty surprising that the Padres’ lineup was disconnected like that after passing the midway point of the NLDS. How to pointed out on MLB.com, the Padres had not been shut out for 24 consecutive innings in 2024, until it happened. It was also rare in the context of MLB’s entire playoff history, as no postseason team had been shut out for that many innings in a row in 33 years. Although momentum only exists to a certain degree, there is a notable difference between losing momentum and simply… disappearing.
This is how the Padres leave the 2024 playoffs, in a state of daze induced by the Dodgers. I hope you can sleep peacefully and find a way to avoid these worthy situations. Beavis y Butt-Head in the future.
