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Last night was bad. But it's a new night, and a new opportunity for the Padres to #BeatLA. Last year's Opening Day starter, James Shields, is making the start for the good guys tonight and hopefully he'll have a better night than Tyson Ross' 2016 debut.
The day after the home opener has been lovingly referred to as the "Tony Gwynn Opener" or "Tony Gwynn Opening Day" by Padres fans for years. The origins of this title date back to 2011 and a blogger by the name of Avenging Jack Murphy, who took inspiration from local writer, Tom Krasovic. On April 6, 2011, Krasovic wrote a blog post that opened with a little anecdote about Mr. Padre.
The day after the Padres' home opener typically was Tony Gwynn's favorite day of the baseball year, so it was only appropriate that Mr. Padre walked into Petco Park on Wednesday afternoon, smile on face one day after San Diego sold out and won its home opener.
"This is my day, yeah, ha, ha, ha," Gwynn said. "You find out who's who. Sellout crowd yesterday, so we'll find out today who the real fans are."
Since then, it's become a little tradition for many Padres fans to make it to the second home game of the season. It's nice to think that Tony Gwynn would be proud of us today, whether we're out at Petco Park cheering on the Padres in person or sitting in front of our TVs and computer screens following the game from home.
The Padres will be debuting their new brown alternate jerseys for tonight's game, so you know they'll all least be looking good. Hopefully they play just as well tonight.
GO FRIARS!! KEEP THE FAITH!! BEAT L.A.!!