Padres believe recipe for even more success in '23 is being ready from start, taking it as it comes
No matter the question, no matter what just happened or at what point in the season, Manny Machado has an explanation that does not vary.
“So on that homer that won the game, it’s 1-2 and he had just thrown a slider you fouled off. How did you know he was going to throw it again?”
“Just playing baseball.”
“No, like, could you tell us what you were thinking after you fouled off the 32 pitch of the at-bat and ...”
“Just playing baseball.”
“But, Manny, when it began to snow in the middle of the at-bat and the UFO landed in …”
“Just playing baseball.”
It is his version of “one day at a time.”
Even if Machado eventually gets into talking about specific details of a play or a situation — and he can be deeply insightful — he first (and often repeatedly) will answer that he is “just playing baseball.”
While it doesn’t provide much information, the phrase explains a lot.
It is the mindset a man almost must have if he is to succeed while playing most of his team’s 162 games over six months in four different times zone and 19 different cities with thousands of people watching virtually everything he does on the field.
“That’s really what it is,” Machado said in a recent conversation about the maddening consistency with which he repeats his mantra.
Fair enough. Difficult to argue, actually.
So, just a word of warning about the upcoming season: These guys look at it differently than everyone else.
Us: Bring on October!
Them: (Stretching) We’ll get there when we get there.
Machado might be the extreme. But the Padres have a clubhouse of experienced players, those who went through last season’s run to the National League Championship Series and those who have had success over a sustained period elsewhere.
“The key to consistency is taking it day by day,” said new Padres designated hitter Matt Carpenter, who has played in a World Series and been to the postseason six other times. “I’m not thinking about June. I’m not thinking about October on March 29. The key to being a consistent major leaguer is to really stay focused in the present and take it day by day. If you can do that, and then you look up at the end of the year, that’s usually the recipe for success.”
It’s not that the Padres don’t know what is upon them as the 2023 season begins Thursday.
With the bulk of last year’s team returning and the offseason signing of shortstop Xander Bogaerts and Fernando Tatis Jr. expected to rejoin the club after serving the final 20 games of his PED suspension, the Padres are considered World Series contenders. FanGraphs projects 91.5 victories and a division title. The site has the Padres’ playoff odds at 85.4 percent, second highest in the major leagues behind the Braves (91 percent). Their 10.7 percent chance to win the World Series is also second to the Braves (14.2 percent).
The players know. And they know everyone else knows.
Pitcher Joe Musgrove, the Grossmont High School product who grew up going to Padres games, has said he feels “like a fan.” He reveled in the Padres players’ visits to various locales in February and the excitement of FanFest. Unlike many players, he has leaned into and thrived on the pressure of playing for his hometown team.
But the reality is excitement over what might come was OK in the offseason and remains OK for those who aren’t wearing a uniform.
“I feel like the expectations are for the fans and for the (the media),” Musgrove said. “We build up a hype and there is an expectation, but for us as players the expectation is not on the result itself. It’s on the quality of work that’s being put in, the daily consistency and effort. That’s kind of where the expectation is for us. And all the stuff will fall into place.”
Playing well at the end remains the imperative.
The Padres, with 89 victories last season, lost to the 87-win Phillies in the NLCS. The Braves won the World Series after having 88 victories in 2021. Over the past 10 full seasons, just four teams that won 100 or more games went on to win the World Series. Just twice in those 10 seasons has the team with the best record gone on to win the World Series.
But eight of the past 10 World Series champions have won at least 93 games in the regular season.
“I think if there is one thing we can build off it’s that we didn’t have the slow trajectory into the playoffs and then get there and be playing good,” Jake Cronenworth said. “You know, play good the whole season — getting better, better, better, better, better, get in the playoffs and we’re playing our best. It was play really good, play really bad, play really good, play really bad, then get hot at the end of the season, go into the playoffs playing your best baseball. Now I think it’s more trying to maintain what we’re doing throughout the season, play good baseball the entire year consistently.”
Yes, the Padres believe they would benefit from a smoother ride.
The only time they had a losing record in 2022 was at 0-1. But they never won more than five games in a row and didn’t pull away in the wild-card race until after a mid-September dressing down by manager Bob Melvin got them re-focused.
It was after that night that they decided one of the things they would change was to have every player on the field for the national anthem. It was a largely symbolic measure but one they felt created unity and a sense of being ready from the start of games.
“We just decided that’s part of our identity is bringing energy, letting the other team know that we have that,” catcher Austin Nola said at the time. “When everybody shows up and we’re all in the dugout, we’re all rooting for each other, I think that’s a big deal.”
They will continue that habit this season.
“I think what happened at the end of last year, it was important that we carry this forward,” Melvin said. “It took a while for us to get things the way we wanted it to. … So we have to take a lot of things that we did at the end of last year where we were out there and we were prepared earlier. There were times when the national anthem was playing and it’s me and my coaches. And once we got everybody out there, I think other teams took notice, like, ‘The Padres are ready right now. They are ready sooner and they are ready to play this game.’ I understand that a lot (of preparation is done) inside. But there is value in other teams coming out and seeing us out there and going, ‘You know what, these guys are ready to play.’ ”
No one is saying that will win them any games, but they believe it won’t hurt. They too often last season were playing from behind or not playing well until a few innings into games. Part of surviving and thriving over a long season is finding little tricks to make every day important.
For a major league ballplayer, talent is the given. Resiliency and the ability to stay present are the separators.
“In this game and what it takes to do it, those are probably the most important things,” Carpenter said. “Talent only goes so far. The team left standing is going to be a combination of talent and all the rest of that.”
