2 excuses the San Diego Padres can't use in 2023, and 1 they can use

2) The San Diego Padres can't say their pitching wasn't good enough in 2023

Quite the contrary, actually. In fact, the San Diego Padres have the fourth-lowest staff ERA in baseball this season, and the second-lowest in the National League.

It hasn't been the pitching.

Granted, Blake Snell's dominance has a lot to do with this. He's having a NL Cy Young-worthy campaign in 2023. But Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and Yu Darvish (though he hasn't delivered elite results in 2023) all did their parts by eating innings when healthy. Even Joe Musgrove, now shut down for the year, was effective when he took the mound.

In the bullpen, closer Josh Hader put together a dominant season. And though the rest of the unit didn't always make it easy to build a bridge to the closer, they still fared pretty well all things considered.

When the 2023 season officially concludes and retrospectives are had, one thing people can't say about why the San Diego Padres struggled is that their pitching didn't hold steady.