LOS ANGELES \u2014 Finally, we got to see the surging Padres go against a good team.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Dodgers are a world apart from the stumblebums and mediocrities the Padres have been feasting on of late.<\/p>\n
And with the playoffs looming, the series opener Tuesday night here felt more important than just one of 162 games.<\/p>\n
On cue, the game got off to a spicy start.<\/p>\n
Dodgers pitcher Brock Stewart buzzed Manny Machado with a first-inning, first-pitch fastball, sending him to the dirt and dislodging his helmet.<\/p>\n
Machado seemed eager to feed off the close call.<\/p>\n
As he lie on the ground, while cheers were easily heard, Machado nodded his head vigorously several times.<\/p>\n
Then he grounded out. Stay tuned for a rematch. Perhaps it comes in October.<\/p>\n
Now for the big picture.<\/p>\n
Due to San Diego\u2019s turnaround, the Padres-Dodgers dynamic has become a lot more interesting since the teams\u2019 previous matchup on July 5.<\/p>\n
If only because, back then, it was almost dead<\/p>\n
The Padres are responsible for most of the renewed sparkle.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve improved more than any other National League team since they exited L.A. with a 44-45 record.<\/p>\n
They went into Tuesday an NL-best 43-24.<\/p>\n
Look at the before and afters.<\/p>\n
The \u201cbad\u201d Padres stood last in runs scored and batting average; 27th in starting-pitching ERA and 22nd in home runs over the nearly 90 games.<\/p>\n
The \u201cgood\u201d Padres placed third in runs scored, 10th in starting-pitching ERA and seventh in home runs in the nearly 80 games.<\/p>\n
How did this happen?<\/p>\n
The \u201cbaseball card\u201d track records, proving Machado right, began to show up.<\/p>\n
A positive regression boom provided the offense a strong tailwind.<\/p>\n
Fernando Tatis Jr. found his power stroke, hitting 20 home runs.<\/p>\n
Jackson Merrill went on an all-around offensive heater by moving his hands forward a tad and leaning into his athleticism.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old, recovering from the worst first half of his three-year career, has batted .308 with 16 home runs and a .905 OPS since July 6<\/p>\n
Machado, 34, was hitting for power and drawing walks. But he was batting .190.<\/p>\n
Tweaked his form to good effect, he has batted .256 with 10 home runs since July 6.<\/p>\n
Ty France joined the party.<\/p>\n
Already having a fine season, he has gone on a career-best tear, batting .344 with 11 home runs, a .410 on-base percentage and a .972 OPS.<\/p>\n
A.J. Preller, Craig Stammen and staff earned their paychecks, too, helping to rescue the season.<\/p>\n
Preller traded for starting pitchers Robbie Ray and Casey Mize.<\/p>\n
Despite their struggles, they\u2019ve provided desperately needed innings to the starting rotation.<\/p>\n
Along with providing the four minor leaguers prospects to get Ray and Mize, the farm system graduated catcher Ethan Salas, who hit a walk-off single and has earned the trust of 2025 ace Nick Pivetta.<\/p>\n
And lefty hitter\/corner outfielder Dustin Harris, since coming up from the Pacific Coast League last month, has locked up the No. 2 spot by batting .353 with five extra-base hits in about 70 at-bats.<\/p>\n
Stammen and his pitching coaches, meantime, teamed up with Preller and staff to create a matchup-heavy approach to pitching, fortifying the rotation over a crucial two-week stretch when it appeared Preller might have to sell, rather than buy, at the Aug. 3 trade deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal of every season is that you get better as the season goes,\u201d Stammen said Tuesday, before L.A. took a 4-0 lead against ace Michael King, whose accuracy was off. \u201cAnd there are peaks and valleys throughout that. But, you want to be trending in the right direction at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Compared with their previous visit to L.A., when they stood seventh in the wild-card race, the Padres now hold an inside track to the postseason.<\/p>\n
Now, we\u2019ll see what three games against the Dodgers tell us about the Padres\u2019 progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Finally, we got to see the surging Padres go against a good team. The Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-472721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}