The San Diego Padres need a goal, and I am going to give it to them. Ready? Here goes: Five above .500! It rolls off the lips, it will look good on a sign, and you can chant it. It gives us all focus on what the next step needs to be on their journey to one day winning it all. Oops, I just did what everyone else in town is doing: getting too far ahead of ourselves and not trusting the process. I have told you over and over that this is a rollercoaster and you have to keep your equilibrium. San Diego will never have a victory parade unless the process is pure so the results will come. The next step in that process is being an above .500 ball club. Padres fans were feeling pretty good going into the All-Star break taking three of four from the Dodgers with just a handful of teams sitting above them in the Wild Card standings. But it was a rough weekend at Petco Park for the Hometown 9 being swept at the hands of a former division rival, the Atlanta Braves.
My three takeaways from this weekend:
This team needs to have a goal of getting 5 games above .500 and stay there for a while. The Padres have shown us that they are not a sub .500 club this season, and that is a reason to celebrate right there. At the break, they were more than ten games above last season. Folks, that is a huge improvement. Come on, when you go to Petco Park this season you expect the Padres to win. Did you feel that last year? But now that they have proven they have a chance to win every night, they need to show they can stay above .500. Until then, any talk of the Wild Card is pointless. No one is making the Wild Card unless you are above .500. Prove you are a winning club and we can talk Wild Card in September.
This team needs to play well on the road to have a winning record. Did you know the Padres are one of only four teams in baseball with a winning road record? The Braves, the Dodgers, the Dbacks, and the Padres are the only teams with a winning road record. The team goes on a long tough road trip, through Miami, Chicago, and New York to play the Mets. They can't play down to the level of the Marlins. The Cubs are 32-16 at Wrigley Field, and New York, well is New York. Nine game cross country roadtrips are always tough and I will never call this non-divisional game in July a must-win game, but I will tell you that they need to come back with a winning a record on this trip in order to get closer to the goal of five over .500.