The Padres 10-game road trip wasn’t good enough

The San Diego Padres finished 5-1 in their last six games before the All-Star break to improve to four games under .500 (43-47). After this 10-game road trip they just finished, San Diego finds themselves in the same spot—four games under .500 (48-52).

No progress made. Just more time has ticked off the clock towards the end of the season.

A 5-5 road trip may have been good enough for the Tampa Bay Rays (61-42) or Baltimore Orioles (61-38) but it’s not good enough for the Padres. What makes it worse is there were multiple games they should’ve won on the trip that they didn’t.

The Padres held multiple 3-0 leads in two of the last three games in Philadelphia but lost them. Then after winning the first two in Toronto, they went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position in the series finale after Blake Snell (1 ER, 7 BB) somehow kept the offense in the game.

Two solid wins came in Detroit before making Alex Faedo (6.98 ERA entering Sunday) look like Justin Verlander in his prime.

“If we want to get where we want to get, stuff like this cannot be happening,” Fernando Tatis Jr. told the media after today’s game.

Yes, Fernando. Stuff like this cannot keep happening. The Padres will not make the postseason if they can’t go on a run. Some fans may say ‘well if they win two out of three the rest of the year, they’d be in’. But come on that’s not realistic. No team in baseball is going to do that.

Going 6-4 on the road trip—so winning just one of those other games—would’ve put them two games under .500. That seems a lot better than where they’re at now doesn’t it? Shoulda woulda coulda.

The Padres now won’t be able to get to .500 until Friday at the earliest. A crucial home stand against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Texas Rangers awaits.