San Diego Padres: Three Things To Make The Season Watchable

The San Diego Padres are bad but there are a few things they could to make the rest of this season watchable.

Unless you spent the entire month of July on vacation, disconnected from everything, you know the San Diego Padres have been really bad, lately. Worse than usual. Coming off one of the worst months in Padres’ baseball history, things don’t appear to be looking up for the final two months of the season.

Much of the struggles have come from the starting rotation, pitching to a 5.46 ERA, .350 OBP, and a near 10% walk rate. Clayton Richard entered Tyler Chatwood territory, posting a 6.9 BB/9 rate last month and a walk rate nearly double the size of his strikeout rate. Tyson Ross didn’t fare much better, giving up five home runs and 15 walks in 23 innings.

The offense was equally as depressing. As a team, the Padres hit .221, the second-lowest team batting average in Major League Baseball. They were one of only six teams that failed to score at least 100 runs in July and grounded into 22 double plays, fifth-most in baseball.

As a result of the play on the field, watching San Diego Padres games are hard to do. I went back to work this week (high school teacher life) and found myself much more interested in useless back-to-school faculty meetings than in the Padres game that I had pulled up on my computer.

Outside of playing better baseball (obviously), there are a few things the Padres could do to keep me interested throughout the rest of the season. Let’s discuss three of the options that could spark a renewed interest.