San Diego Padres win first series since All-Star break: 3 takeaways

The San Diego Padres won their first series since the All-Star break against their division rivals. Here are 3 takeaways from the series win.

It’s been a while, but the San Diego Padres have finally tallied the win column again.

That is, the series win column.

The Friars entered the All-Star break on July 7 on a roll, taking three out of four against the Los Angeles Dodgers and sitting pretty at 45-45. Spirits were good, expectations were up, and the hype was limitless.

Unfortunately, things began to crumble almost as soon as they were built up.

The Padres crashed back down to earth pretty quickly, failing to win a series and even two games in a row coming into this tilt against the Colorado Rockies. They fell nine games below .500 for the first time in 2019 and the wild card spot quickly slipped out of reach. Frustration was at its peak and disappointment abounded.

That was before the Rockies came to town. Things took a turn for the better as the Padres gave us a glimpse of what made them so exciting to watch in the first half of the season.

Though they couldn’t complete the four-game sweep, we need to keep things in perspective and remember that 2019 was never our year to compete. Seeing the Padres produce offensively, unleash strong starting pitching, and have fun on the field was a refreshing sight to see.

With that said, we’ve got three takeaways from the divisional series win.

The Padres have been bad, but not Rockies bad

Over the last couple weeks, the Padres and Rockies have swapped places in the National League West cellar. While the Friars were there only a few times, it was still disheartening to see — last place was too familiar and made fans forget about the bigger picture. It felt like there wasn’t much progress from last season after all.

Well, that narrative can be put to rest after this series.

The Rockies had much higher hopes than the Padres going into this season. They’ve made the playoffs two years in a row, most recently coming off a 91-72 season in which they made it to the NL Divisional Series. Expectations were mile high (excuse the pun) for building off those seasons and going deeper into October.

With 44 games left in 2019, the Rockies are 53-65 and 9.0 games back from the wild card. Unless a miracle happens, they’re unlikely to make it into the dance for the third year in a row.

Meanwhile, San Diego was never expecting playoffs in 2019 — the fact that there were even discussions about it halfway through the season was already proof of progress. Coming off a 66-win season, the Friars are on pace to surpass that total this year and still have a chance to hit .500 by October.

The first-half performance definitely shifted expectations towards something that was never on tap in February. While it’s a disappointment not to make the playoffs after such a great start, it would’ve been a year ahead of schedule anyway. The Padres are still right on track.

Sitting at 24-27 against the NL West this season, they’ll have several more chances to prove that they’re no longer the worst team in the division.

Anything can happen

“Looks like playoffs are back on the menu, boys!”

That’s what was circulating around the community when the Padres took the series from the Rockies on Saturday. That first series win since the All-Star break certainly lifted the spirits around the fanbase, and rightfully so. Perhaps they’re back in the playoff mix.

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Or perhaps not.

They’ve gone 5-5 in their last 10 games and are still 6.5 games back from a wild card spot. The short three-game winning streak didn’t do much because other contending teams kept winning.

That’s what good teams do, and in such a crowded NL race this season, there are a lot of good teams vying for one of those playoff spots.

It’s hard to pin down one consensus pick for the wild card this season. The Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals currently hold that spot, and considering how close the top three teams in the NL Central are, it’s likely that one of them will snag a place in the dance.

So that leaves one spot left for any of nine teams to grab.

At this point, however, the Padres don’t control their own destiny. 6.5 games back is definitely possible to come back from, but they’d need some help from the teams ahead along the way.

In the next month, San Diego will play the Tampa Bay Rays (69-50), Philadelphia Phillies (60-57), Boston Red Sox (62-58), and Dodgers (79-41). That’s a tough crowd to get through if they want to gain some ground in the playoff race.

Anything can happen though. The unknown and improbabilities in sports is what gets viewers hooked in the first place. If the Padres can play like they did against the Rockies through the rest of the season, they definitely have a chance.

For now, expectations should continue to be tempered as they relate to our record though. Remember that 2019 was never our year, so building off of and improving on the 2018 season, in which the Padres won only 66 games, is a much bigger priority. It seems like we’re on pace for that right now, which should be considered progress as is.

For complete coverage of the San Diego Padres 2019 season, continue following Friars on Base all season long.