The Padres are .500 through their first 24 games—and that’s not too bad considering the circumstances

A lot of San Diego Padres fans believe this year is World Series or bust so a 12-12 start is disappointing. There’s no doubt the team needs to play better as a whole if they want to get to the Fall Classic but consider what they had to overcome to get to .500.

• No Fernando Tatis Jr. for the first 20 games
• No Joe Musgrove three times through the rotation
• No Robert Suarez (elbow inflammation)
• Slow starts by Manny Machado (.536 OPS) and Juan Soto (.198 AVG)
• 24 games in 25 days and 18 straight since the April 5 off day
• 4/5 opponents had winning records (Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Milwaukee Brewers)

That’s a lot of adversity in the first 24 games of the season. I wonder how teams who have gotten off to hot starts—like the Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates—would’ve done if a couple of their superstars weren’t doing well and they were without multiple key players. They probably wouldn’t be well above .500.

To finish off their first 24 games, the Padres got Tatis and Joe Musgrove back as they went into Arizona. Like Machado said over the weekend, “this is the team we’ve been looking forward (to) for months now.” That team took three out of four, scoring 19 runs in the series.

They’ve won four out of their last five and will have five off days in the month of May compared to three in April with series coming up against the Cincinnati Reds (7-15), Kansas City Royals (5-17), Washington Nationals (7-14) and Miami Marlins (12-10).

Expect the Padres to start playing consistently better baseball.