The San Diego Padres are playing like a team on a mission.
Six months ago, the Friars had two chances to slay the dragon for a second time in three seasons. They were one win from defeating the Goliath that is the Los Angeles Dodgers, and moving on to the National League championship series. Instead, their bats went silent, the Dodgers woke up, and the rest is history.
The Padres’ prolific offense wilted over the final two games of the division series, going 24 innings without scoring a run as the Dodgers’ pitching staff carved up San Diego's vaunted lineup like an Easter ham. The Padres were outscored 10–0 over those final two games, turning a 2–1 series lead into a 3–2 defeat.
"We just lost, it's not fun at all," Fernando Tatis Jr. said. "So you know, you take that bitter with you home and you just find a way how to get better."
To add insult to injury, the Dodgers cruised to a World Series title and have since commented that the Padres were the toughest team they faced. Does that mean San Diego would have won its first World Series title if it had gotten past L.A.? We'll never know.
The Padres were forced to contemplate that collapse all offseason. To make matters worse, the returning players had to sit by and watch key teammates peeled away in free agency as the franchise attempted to pare down its payroll. The team is also dealing with an increasingly ugly ownership fight that spilled into the public.
Gone are All-Stars Jurickson Profar and Tanner Scott, beloved shortstop Ha-seong Kim, starting catcher Kyle Higashioka and key bench pieces Donovan Solano and David Peralta. To fill gaps, the front office went bargain hunting this winter, picking up cheap veterans like Jason Heyward, Martin Maldonado, Kyle Hart, Gavin Sheets, Yuli Gurriel, Connor Joe and Jose Iglesias. Elias Diaz was also re-signed on the cheap after being a late addition to the roster in 2024. A front office known for splashy winter moves was mostly held to scrapheap signings.
Veteran ace Joe Musgrove blew out his elbow in the postseason and will miss the 2025 campaign, but the team managed to find a replacement late in the offseason. General manager A.J. Preller waited out the market and signed righty Nick Pivetta to a four-year, $55 million deal.
Despite an underwhelming offseason, the results have been remarkable to start the year.
This is a different roster than the one that walked out of Dodger Stadium dejected after Game 5 of the NLDS last season, but many key pieces remain the same. The cornerstones are all back with Tatis, Manny Machado, 21-year-old phenom Jackson Merrill, Xander Bogaerts, Luis Arraez and Jake Cronenworth still there. And they're ready to put that 2024 failure behind them.
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"There's some unfinished business that we didn't accomplish, and we're gonna continue to try to achieve that," Machado said. "It's some unfinished business that we've got to take care of. Everyone here is excited to come back and compete."
That attitude has shown early in the season as the Padres have become a buzzsaw through their competition. San Diego is tied for MLB's best record (16-7)—with the New York Mets and those Dodgers, naturally—possesses the league's second-best run differential (plus-33), and has surrendered the second-fewest runs (68). The Friars are also a remarkable 12–1 inside the friendly confines of Petco Park, with the only defeat coming in extra innings against the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs.
San Diego leads the majors in batting average (.274), on-base percentage (.345), is fourth in OPS (.764) and has the lowest strikeout rate in the league (17.3%).
A rash of early injuries, including losing Merrill to a hamstring injury and Cronenworth to a fractured rib, has left the lineup diminished, but the train has largely stayed on the tracks. Sheets and Iglesias have helped fill gaps offensively, while a rotating cast of role players has also admirably pitched in.
Tatis is playing the best baseball of his career and looks like an MVP candidate. He's hitting .349 with an NL-leading eight home runs and an OPS of 1.087. In 22 games, he has already generated an MLB-best 2.1 WAR. Machado is also fully healthy for the first time in years, and it shows. He's hitting .306 with an OPS of .861 while playing spectacular defense. The team's two cornerstones have led the way and seem motivated by the past but focused on the future.
"We're here to win," Tatis said. "There's a job to be finished."
On the mound, the Padres rank second in ERA (2.90) and fifth in WHIP (1.14) and have tossed a league-high six shutouts.
Led by Michael King, Pivetta and the surprising Randy Vasquez, San Diego's starters have largely been excellent. Despite losing Scott, the team's bullpen is still loaded and has been dominant, leading MLB in ERA (1.46) and WHIP (0.97), while striking out 88 over 86 1/3 innings of work.
Heading into 2024, the Padres had lost a generational superstar in Juan Soto and the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner in Blake Snell. Somehow, they wound up being better. Then they entered this year having lost Profar, Scott, Higashioka, Kim and others. And yet, they somehow look better.
Tatis was quick to praise the makeup of this year's clubhouse despite the talented defections.
"Straight ballers out there," he said. "Every guy that's here is hungry, wants to go out there and perform at their best and help the team the best way possible and try to win ballgames every single day,"
Merrill echoed those thoughts.
"I think everybody knows what it takes to win," Merrill said. "It's not the amount of people, the amount of talent that you have on the field—it's the amount of chemistry, the amount of love you've got in the locker room."
Manager Mike Shildt has looked like a genius since the midpoint of the 2024 season. He had a simple explanation for his team's early success.
"Winners find solutions," Shildt said. "That's what we look to do every day and so it's a club that has a lot of different pieces—can beat you in a lot of different ways."
San Diego's players could have been forgiven for scuffling out of the gate this season. Given how the postseason ended, the key roster subtractions, the new pieces and all the offseason drama, a hangover was almost expected. Instead, the Padres have taken all that has transpired and used it as fuel to propel them to the best start in baseball.
The Padres have unfinished business. They look like a team ready to get the job done.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Padres Still Look Like Legitimate Contenders Despite Discouraging Offseason.
