PicoBlog

That may be cliché #1 in baseball, right? I mean of all the things we say to ourselves and each other, this is perhaps the most repeated. It’s a marathon, not a sprint; it’s a long summer; it’s a war of attrition. However you want to phrase it, that’s what we’re always, always, always talking about: the season is so, so long.

And yet.

And yet every year we all have a bout of collective amnesia. A team gets off to a bad start and we write them off before Memorial Day. A team expected to struggle gets hot in April and we start talking about how now they’ll be buyers at the trade deadline.

Usually, though, the more expected outcomes start to occur, even if they take a little while to show themselves. Why? All together now: Because it’s a long season.

This obviously relates quite directly to the two teams we’ll be watching at Petco Park this weekend in the final series before the All-Star Break.

Both the Padres and the Mets entered 2023 with gigantic expectations. A pair of playoff teams from a year ago, both with massive payrolls and absolute, full-throttle WIN NOW mentalities.

When they got together in Queens back in April, we all knew it was early and didn’t read much into anything that happened in those three games. But as time ticked on, and both teams started to truly struggle, and then struggle some more, everyone around baseball rushed to write them both off. And, to some extent, understandably. The Mets were looking really old all of a sudden, especially in the starting pitching department, and the Padres were on a historically bad pace hitting in the clutch.

Yet tonight’s game will start with both teams feeling as good about themselves as they have probably at any point since the very beginning of the season.

The Pads are coming off their first three-game sweep of 2023; the Mets dismantled the D-backs last night and have won five in a row. Am I going to make any predictions about where either team will end up? Absolutely not. But at this point would I be shocked if they both ended up in the playoffs? Not even a little. It is, you see, a long season…and we’re barely halfway through it.

One of the many beauties of baseball are those endless little, almost imperceptible things that can end up having an outsized impact on a game.

A fun recent example: On Tuesday against the Angels, Bob Melvin wanted to give Manny Machado what everyone these days calls a “half-day off.” Instead of starting at third base, as usual, Manny would serve as the DH and so his only responsibilities would be on the offensive side (3-3 with a walk, an RBI, and two runs scored, btw).

Generally this year, when Manny is out of the lineup, the Padres slide Ha-Seong Kim over to third. This makes sense, as Kim is a brilliant defender and, as a bonus, whenever he makes a Manny-like play, I get to drop a “Kimchado” on the broadcast.

On Tuesday, though, the Padres kept Kim at second base and for just the third time in 2023, Rougned Odor got the start at the hot corner.

Before the game, I decided to ask Melvin about what went into that decision, and he said with the profile of the Angels’ lineup and in part because of Joe Musgrove, who pitched that night, they expected more balls up the middle than to the left side. Made enough sense and I forgot about it until the 9th inning.

That was the game, you may recall, that was 8-1 at the start of the 9th and 8-5 after the final out of the game. And do you remember the final out? Taylor Ward looped the ball slowly over the mound and out of nowhere, Kim came streaking in from his position at second base, and now on the shortstop’s side of the diamond, made an incredibly athletic play to finally end the game. I don’t know that anyone else on the Padres would have made that play…in fact, right now, I’m not sure any other infielder in all of baseball would have made that play.

Good thing he was at second base.

Little things are big things in baseball.

In addition to the long season stuff covered above, my sense that things were maybe starting to seriously get a bit better actually kicked in last weekend in Cincinnati.

I understand that may sound insane considering the Padres dropped two out of three to the Reds as they wrapped a 1-5 trip that began in Pittsburgh, but there was no doubt that even in the losses on Friday and Sunday at Great American Ballpark, they were clearly…and I mean clearly…playing better baseball.

Results matter, I know, but those defeats, while gut-wrenching for sure, felt different to me than many of the others in recent weeks. It felt weird to be encouraged by losses just after the mathematical midway point for a team as far back of expectations as the Padres were, but I really was.

Coming home to sweep the Angels added to it and now a big weekend against the team from the big city. Never boring, huh?

One of the comments I run out on the broadcast and in interviews with some regularity is that I think the biggest gap between fan (and oftentimes media) knowledge and reality in baseball exists in regards to how the bullpen is managed.

And understandably, for the fans. Teams generally play these things fairly close to the vest, and a lot of the decisions about who is or is not available on given night are not made until just before the game or sometimes even during the game.

But as I’ve learned over the years, if there’s a reliever coming in to pitch in a situation that seems to make no sense, 97 or 98 times out of 100, there’s a good reason for it.

I only bring this up because the Padre ‘pen has been pretty beat up lately and so there have been a lot of the knee-jerk reactions out there about the way Melvin has handled his relief corps. Just know that if Josh Hader isn’t working the 9th inning of a close game, or if he IS working in a non-save situation, there are some pretty good reasons why. Credit to Hader for being a bit more public about this as of late; he’s done his part to close that gap a little bit here in San Diego.

Lastly, a few words on social media. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you may (or may not!) have noticed that I have cut way, way back on my posting in recent weeks. I don’t know how interesting any of this is, but I figured I would try and explain a little bit in this space.

Aside from some of the obvious usability issues as of late with the bird app, I was just becoming more and more overwhelmed by it all. And I feel guilty about that, because for all their faults, those sites are wonderful ways to communicate with all of you who follow the team. But it really became too much. Like to the point where I was not opening the apps at all for days at a time, which is a total 180 from my normal in-season usage.

I think when I began this newsletter, I always thought/hoped it would allow me to cut back a bit on social media, but it’s played out a bit more extremely than that. Not by design, just how life goes some times.

Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m saying other than A-sorry if I haven’t responded to something you’ve sent me and B-I’m still not sure how this is all going to go.

And as hypocritical as this sounds, I did start messing around with Threads this week, perhaps in hopes that it will bring the Twitter experience back to a simpler time. Whether that plays out or not, who knows…it’s a long season, after all.

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Much love and thanks to all of you who have checked in. The newsletter continues to grow, so please don’t be shy about sharing it with friends and family.

Also, I’d like to get back to some Q&A next time, so feel free to send in some questions. Baseball, broadcasting, whatver.

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