Why the San Diego Padres offense is struggling

Does their run differential upset you? Or that they can’t score consistently? Here’s why the San Diego Padres offense has been less than stellar this season.

Compared to the last eight seasons, this San Diego Padres offense is the most exciting one to watch by a long shot.

That said, it won’t be enough to spring the Friars into a playoff spot, at least not at its current rate. Their method of manufacturing runs is unsustainable, inconsistent, and downright frustrating. There’s a reason why they’re ranked in the bottom ten in the league for most offensive categories.

That’s right. The Padres are ranked 24th in runs scored, 20th in run differential, 27th in total hits, 24th in RBIs, 26th in batting average, and 24th in on-base percentage. I guess that’s not very surprising considering their record.

They are, however, ranked 11th in home runs and 17th in slugging percentage. So what gives?

In this post, we’ll attempt to take a deeper dive into why the Padres can’t seem to produce, especially when it’s most important. Of course there are many reasons beyond the ones we discuss here, including management, defense, and downright bad luck that can lead to an unproductive offense. We try to tackle the ones that are most apparent though.

As with several of these analytical articles, this one will be somewhat statistically-heavy. Feel free to check out FanGraphs and Baseball-reference for detailed explanations on certain statistics and how they’re calculated.

Let’s commence!