Padres Editorial: San Diego Padres Biggest Rivals

Jun 27, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; San Diego Padres mascot The Swingin

Who is Thy Enemy?

If there is one thing baseball fans love, it is good old fashioned rivalries. With all due respect to the Steelers-Ravens or even the Lakers-Celtics, baseball clearly has the best rivalries in sports. Red Sox and Yankees stands alone, with the Dodgers-Giants right behind it. It is a combination of teams that have been around for a long time, can cross geographical lines and games that just always seems to be close. Remember when HOF-elect Pedro Martinez slammed 90-year-old Don Zimmer into the ground? Tim McCarver was ready to storm the field himself to stop the melee. Yet for every great rivalry that now can get played out every year thanks to inter-league play, some teams get the short end of the stick.

After all, every team does have rivalries. Those rivalries are often caused by individual players but amazingly sometimes the rivalries can remain long after the players involved move on. It is amazing that as long as baseball has been played certain tendencies can remain and be challenged. Recently the Red Sox have actually won more World Championships than the Yankees, but for 86 years before that things weren’t so good on the Red Sox side of the court. Bucky “F-ing” Dent. Grady Little leaving Pedro in and Aaron Boone in 2003 come to mind for suffering Sox fans.

The Padres play a fierce AL Rivalry series against the Seattle Mariners every year that really gets the fans going…not so much. Dubbed the Eddie Vedder cup, we’ll dub that the Padres 4th biggest rivalry. Who are the top three though and what moments (recent and historical) cause them to reach that level? After all, the Padres do have rivals but sometimes rivalries are a little more one sided than others. In other words, many teams feel like they have a rivalry against the Dodgers – but the Dodgers may not even know about it.

Will Leitch of SportsonEarth wrote up three rivals for each team, and I’ll take his feedback into account when coming up with the Padres top four rivalries.

Will Deno incite a physical rivalry against his former club? Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

#4 Seattle Mariners

Those hated Seattle Mariners, right? In researching this article I found several articles explaining the origin of this fabricated “rivalry”, one from Friars On Base from 2012 here and one from GasLamp Ball extolling the Vedder Cup name. Based of course on the fact that iconic Pearl Jam lead signer Eddie Vedder went to high school in San Diego before moving and becoming famous in Seattle. He does have a restaurant in San Diego as well and famously would pop in to play surprise shows at The Casbah. This is one of those rivalries that gets created due to scheduling restrictions. Thanks Bud Selig.

You want Inter-League play so you need an AL rival for the Padres to play. Let’s see, the Angels makes sense to play the Dodgers. Cross that out. The A’s should play the Giants to replay the 1989 Earthquake Series every year, cross that one out. Oh, the Mariners! That works out perfectly! Two historically mediocre teams with a few famous players in Ken Griffey Jr and Tony Gwynn and they are both in the same time zone. Let’s get THAT done.

Interestingly enough, since 1995, the Mariners lead the head-to-head series 49-45, so it is actually pretty close. Neither team has ever won a World Series so there is that historical intrigue as well. Whether Seth Smith and Chris Denorfia plan on hitting 30 homers this year to incite the Padres ownership to regret their trades is yet to be seen. Both cities also have departed former basketball franchises, but that leads to more empathy than hatred so just disregard you heard that fact.

In conclusion, if we need an AL rival – Seattle is it!

Darn that Kevin Towers for getting fired and going to Arizona!

#3 Arizona Diamondbacks

I differ some here from Leitch’s rankings, but you’ll see why it makes more sense later. I just can’t recall too many experiences that would cause the Padres to have a big rivalry against the Diamondbacks.

Besides the fact that the D-backs jumped on the scene as a brand new team in 1998 and then won the World Series in 2001 when the Padres had been plugging along since 1969 with no World Series, what else have they done to the Padres?

I mean generally “Zonies” are known for causing trouble at the bars and beaches in San Diego, so there is that. They are blamed for causing the beach alcohol ban after Beach Brawl Labor Day ’07. They are division rivals so I suppose there is that. Former Padres General Manager Kevin Towers did take the helm of the Diamondbacks after leaving the Padres, but he was FIRED from the Padres and the Diamondbacks last season so that doesn’t work anymore either. The Padres are 140-158 against the D’backs historically, which is pretty close considering that is a lot of games played. Not to mention the fact the D’backs outbid Cuban slugger Yasmany Tomas this off-season.

I actually think the Diamondbacks could be pretty good this season. Depending on what they get out of Tomas and assuming last season was just an adjustment year for Mark Trumbo and Paul Goldschmidt is healthy all season, they certainly should have the mashers to get runs scored. How their pitching staff will hold up is the big question mark, but I expect better things from a young staff.

Also, last season the team was buried by the end of the April and it is just hard to get back from that. Then they lost Goldschmidt and the air went out of their sails. The next two rivalry teams we start getting to the good stuff…

Mandatory Credit: rockieszingers.com

#2 Colorado Rockies

This one boils down to a dramatic one game playoff game for the 2007 National League West and one Matt Holliday of the Colorado Rockies. The Padres and Rockies had battled all season long but quite frankly the Padres looked to be in a great spot to 3-peat as National League West Champions.

The Rockies caught fire in a crazy way come September though, and just could not lose. After winning the one game playoff, technically game 163 of the regular season, they had won 14 of their last 15 games and would stay that hot all the way to the World Series before deflating and losing to the Boston Red Sox who would win their 2nd World Series in 4 years after not winning one since 1918. The play at the clip below was just the beginning of the heartbreak here though for the Padres, as it stands as the closest the Padres have been to the post-season.

A few days before this game, Trevor Hoffman had blown a chance to clinch the division when Tony Gwynn Jr (of all people!) tripled to help the Brewers beat the Padres in extra innings. Now, in this final game of the season, the teams were tied at 6-6 through 9 innings. How did we get there? Let’s take a look below.

The Rockies went up 3-0 early until Adrian Gonzalez belted his first career grand slam in the 5th after pitcher Jake Peavy got things started with a base hit. The Padres were up 5-3 at this point but the Rockies battled back to tie the game. In the top of the 13th Scott Hairston Jr. hit a two-run homer to give the Padres a two run lead with future Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman still in the bullpen. Padres fans waited with baited breath awaiting what seemed like the inevitable but also knowing that Hoffman had struggled this season. He had already blown six saves that season but was Trevor Hoffman. This of course though was also Coors Field, where no lead is ever safe.

So to the bottom half they went, with Hoffman coming in. He immediately allowed back-to-back doubles to start things off before a game-tying triple to Holliday. Not a good start. After an intentional walk to hot-hitting Todd Helton, up came light-hitting Jamey Carroll. He hit the sac fly to right and Brian Giles made a lollipop but on-target throw to catcher Michael Barrett. Despite the delayed call, he was called safe and the Rockies won the game.

Replays to all Padres fans sure make it look like he was out and blocked, but this was before instant replay and we will never know. In all reality though, clearly Hoffman was throwing softballs to home plate at this point and whose to say the next hitter wouldn’t have singled in Helton? Either way, a rivalry was born that night. The Padres currently are down in the all-time series 171-188.