July has been a key month for the Padres the last few years, as the team has made more than one splash in the trade market.
But trailing in the National League West by 8.5 games, are they set up for a run or poised to fade? And how will that affect their decisions at the oh-so-close Aug. 1 trade deadline?
To put it another way, as they start the second half in Philadelphia, will they embark on a run like the week before the All-Star Break, when they went 5-1? Or one like the week prior, when they suffered through a 1-5 stretch?
And if the Padres are shifting their attention to the wild-card race, the Phillies series is more than just a rematch of the 2022 NL Championship Series. The Friars are six games behind in the WC standings, and the Phillies are one of the teams they have to leapfrog to contend.
As Manny Machado told his teammates, via MLB.com, “get your minds right for the second half. Because it ain’t gonna be easy. But we’re gonna be ready for it.”
To recap the first half, here’s how some Padres fared by the numbers:
- Machado – the NL Player of the Week to close out June, Machado hit.478, with four home runs and 13 RBIs. He has heated up dramatically in the past month, after bring hampered by injuries, including a fracture in his hand, to begin the year.
- Fernando Tatis Jr. started the season late, but he has paced the team, hitting .288 with 16 home runs, 44 RBIs, 20 doubles and 14 stolen bases. And he’s no slouch in the outfield, either.
- Blake Snell, the NL Pitcher of the Month for June, has been on fire – enough that it was surprise that he didn’t make the All-Star team. He had a climb after a 1-6 start, but is now 6-7. How? During June he went 3-1 with a 0.87 ERA and 53 strikeouts.
- Among the problems on offense are Jake Cronenworth and Trent Grisham, hitting .217 and .209, respectively, and Grisham has struck out 92 times. Xander Bogaerts, hitting .253, also has scuffled at times, but manager Bob Melvin said regarding his performance to open 2023, “He was there early on, he’s going to be there in the second half.”
- The bullpen has been a consistent issue, good starts and more than one Friar comeback has been squandered as a result. “We definitely need another guy down there, another righty,” Melvin told The Athletic of the bullpen. Speaking of the trade deadline …
So once high expectations for the Padres in the NL West have ebbed. But that presents an “opportunity to kind of prove everyone wrong,” as Joe Musgrove told MLB.
Yu Darvish gets the start in Philadelphia Friday as the Padres begin a lengthy road trip.
