Morning Coffee with Mark Whelan: How Hot are the Padres Hitters?

Two things we know:

1)      The Padres hitters were dreadful before the All-Star break.

2)      The Padres hitters have been great since the All-Star break.

We spent the first half of the season wailing and moaning about this being the worst baseball offense in the history of mankind. And rightfully so. The hitting stunk out loud. But we haven’t gone into much detail about how much the Pads have been raking since that three-day period when Tyson Ross and Huston Street went to Minnesota. I still can’t believe another yet passed without a Padre playing in the ASG!! Oops, sorry. I regressed into first-half wailing mode for a second there.

We’ve all heard about Tommy Medica’s five-hit, two-homer game by now. But did you know his July on-base percentage is a whopping .522? That’s up in Barry Bonds, post-73-homer range. Granted, it’s only six games, but we’re comparing this to a team OBP of under .280 for the first half.

What other happy little numbers can we discover in the 18 games the Padres have played since the break?

More from Padres News

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• Padres News: Fernando Tatis Jr. trade rumors, Seth Lugo chase, Manny Machado
• Padres barely missed out on high-end veteran starting pitcher
• This veteran DH target seems ideal for contending Padres roster

• Alexi Amarista has three 3-hit games.
• Since July 20, Seth Smith is hitting .353, and like Amarista, has three 3-hit games.
• Yangervis Solarte, in 14 games since being acquired in the Chase Headley trade, has 16 hits, 11 runs scored, and 9 runs batted in.
• Rene Rivera is slashing .316/.422/.500.
• Yonder Alonso has an OPS of 1.217. In 10 games, he has 12 hits, including 6 for extra bases, in 28 ABs.
• In 8 games, Everth Cabrera is hitting .333 with 11 hits, has a .368 on-base percentage and has stolen three bases.
• Will Venable has a triple slash line of .323/.354/.516, with 20 hits, 10 RBI, 3 HR and 2 steals. Since last Wednesday, he has five multiple-hit games, and is slashing .407/.448/.667 with 7 RBI.
• Jedd Gyorko is hitting .313 and has an OPS of .999. He has three doubles and two homers, and has driven in eight runs in nine games, while cutting his strikeout rate down from 27.5% to 18.8%.
• And back to Medica. Our young stud has not only been hot for the past week. Since the All-Star break, he is hitting .409 with an OPS of 1.117. His slugging percentage of .659 leads the major leagues.
• As a team, the Padres’ .278 batting average leads the National League.

Gosh, that was fun to write about. When was the last time there were eight Padres hitters we could mention in an article about how well the team is hitting? A guy could get used to this.