The Padres' nightmare features lots of ghosts

An 0-11 record in extra inning games is the leading symptom.

Josh Hader

Californians are notorious for their singsong speech, their lust for tearing down and replacing houses, and their tendency to glare dumbly at wrecked cars on the shoulder.

In San Diego this season, an average of 40,729 people pay good money to watch the Padres play. This means there’s a lot of conversations in Petco Park like this: “Soooo….like, you know, this team, like, sucks, right?”

The Padres, in fact, will blow right through last year’s club attendance record even as they play enough bad baseball to make the Dave Winfield era seem hopeful. At this writing they have won 62 games and lost 71 with the third-highest Opening Day payroll in baseball. (In fairness the Mets and Yankees ranked 1-2, and they’ll finish up the track as well.)

Perhaps they should have held a parade on Groundhog Day after they unquestionably captured Major League Baseball’s January pennant. With shortstop Xander Bogaerts joining Manny Machado, Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis III, and with Blake Snell actually leading National League pitchers in ERA, the Padres have lost 22 more games than have the Dodgers, and have the same record as the Washington Nationals, whose rebuilding project climaxed when they dealt Soto to San Diego last year.

Note that the Padres beat the Dodgers in the National League Division Series last year. The Dodgers reacted by divesting themselves of Cody Bellinger and Trea Turner, after they had let Corey Seager leave the year before. But the Dodgers also leaned on a rich farm system that they have not depleted, for the most part. Thanks to their emphasis on depth, they are a team. The Padres are a fantasy league juggernaut.

The towering problem is a .231 average with men in scoring position. That is 13 points fewer than the next-worst clutch-hitting team in the league (Mets).

There are too many aspects to examine in full, but let’s just narrow it down to the margins. San Diego has played 11 extra-inning games and, thanks to repeated execution failures, has lost all of them. The Padres are 6-21 in one-run games.

If you’re still interested in forensic research, those overtime losses probably hold some secrets:

APRIL 13

Milwaukee comes to Petco Park. Nick Martinez keeps the Padres in the game for six innings, and Trent Grisham bashes a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth. That’s how teams of destiny operate, right?

Well, not when a reliever walks the leadoff guy in the 11th. Willy Adames takes that gift from Luis Garcia. Then he and ghost-runner Christian Yelich pull off a double steal and set up a sacrifice fly by Rowdy Tellez.

The Padres, of course, get their own head start with Brandon Dixon perched on second base. But when Jake Cronenworth grounds out to shortstop Adames, Dixon inexplicably takes off and is erased at third. Naturally, Jose Azocar delivers a base hit, which in this case scores no one. San Diego loses, 4-3, and falls to 7-7. Not to worry; the Dodgers aren’t at a full sprint either.

MAY 2

Back at Petco, the Padres lose, 2-1, to Cincinnati in 10. Jake Fraley ties it with a two-out base hit in the eighth inning. Jonathan India leads off the 10th with an RBI single — a sentence that was never written before the “Manfred Man” was lowered onto the second-base bag. Alexis Diaz is entrusted with the save and, after he walks Grisham, steams through the gauntlet of Tatis, Machado and Soto with only one batted ball. The Padres are now 16-15 but, hey, it’s a long season. Little did they know.

MAY 7

The hated Dodgers and their reviled fans show up at Petco Park, and sit there knowingly as the Padres’ Joe Cosgrove holds a 2-0 lead. Eventually he gives way to Josh Hader, the prized reliever the Padres got from Milwaukee last year. With two out In the ninth Hader faces Mookie Betts and gives up a tying home run. Rookie Michael Busch gets the game-winner in the 10th and the Padres lose, 3-2. Wait, didn’t we turn that page last October? The Padres are 18-17 and suddenly three games behind L.A.

MAY 10

In Minnesota, the Padres trail 2-1 until Machado’s sacrifice fly in the 8th. In a rare exhibition of detail work, Austin Nola squeezes home Grisham in the top of the 10th for a one-run lead. Surely Hader would close this thing out. Instead, Donovan Solano’s leadoff single gets the ghost runner home. The Padres load the bases in the 11th and the Twin’s Griffin Jax strikes out Matt Carpenter, and then Alex Kiriloff gets the walk-off single off Domingo Tapia. The 3-2 loss sends San Diego’s record to 19-18.

MAY 27

The Padres have four wins in five games as they tee it up in Yankee Stadium. They lead 2-1 going into the bottom of the seventh, which is when D.J. Lemahieu raps a homer off Michael Wacha. Again the Padres get little-balled in the 10th, when Harrison Bader bunts over LeMahieu, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa singles off Martinez for the 3-2 win. The Padres are now 24-28.

JUNE 19

Two home runs by Soto put the Padres ahead, 4-1, in San Francisco. It is 4-2 when the ninth rolls around. Garcia immediately gives up a walk and a single, throws a run-scoring wild pitch, and gives way to Drew Carlton. Patrick Bailey’s sacrifice fly ties it, and Ray Kerr has to come in to strike out Joc Pederson with bases full.

Camilo Doval, the Giants’ closer, starts the 10th by intentionally walking Soto and then striking out Machado and retiring Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth. Knowledgeable Padres’ fans immediately flip over to the news, and thus don’t suffer through Mike Yastrzemski’s 3-run home run in the 10th off Kerr and the celebration thereafter. Giants win 7-4.  Padres are 35-37.

JUNE 30

The Padres stumble into Cincinnati after being swept three games in Pittsburgh. People are beginning to wonder when the invincibilty of this team is going to take hold. But in the top of the ninth, the Padres solve Diaz, tying it on Carpenter’s sacrifice fly, and giving him his first blown save of the year. However, students of the Padres’ season nod grimly when Roughned Odor pops up with Cronenworth on third.

Hader handles the 10th and San Diego rises again, on Tatis’ single and Soto’s RBI double. Then Bogearts leaves Tatis on third. With two out, Cincinnati’s Matt McLain ties with a homer off Kerr.

Once more, into the breach. The Padres took a 5-4 lead in the 11th when Gary Sanchez immediately singled home Cronenworth. Carlton came in to nail it down. He is ambushed by Elly De La Cruz’s RBI double, which tied it, and then Spencer Steer’s 2-run homer sends the Padres walking back into the darkness again. 

(Dennis Eckersley, who was one of the first to talk of walk-offs, was always referring to the team that lost and had to trudge off the field, not the winning team that was cavorting around like it was V-J Day. The offense doesn’t “walk it off.” The victim just walks off.)

This is probably the game that cured the last Padres optimist. They are 37-45. “This might give us something to build off of,” says Seth Lugo, as if anybody would trust the Padres with a brick.

JULY 7

United by misery, the Mets and Padres meet at Petco Park. The home bullpen gets into extra innings at 3-3, but then the Mets tee off on Tom Cosgrove and get two runs. Brent Honeywell comes in to hit a batter, throw a wild pitch and give up Francisco Lindor’s 2-run single. This is the moment when Machado actually comes through in extra innings, with a so-what homer in the bottom of the 10th. Mets win 7-5. Padres are 41-47.

JULY 16

In Philadelphia, where the Padres’ 2022 season died at the hands of Bryce Harper, Tatis drills a 2-run single in the eighth for a 5-5 tie. Soto’s sacrifice fly puts San Diego ahead in the 10th. So, with two out in the 10th, it’s Hader against Harper. There is no better bet than Hader against a lefthand hitter, unless it’s a bet against the Padres in extra time. Harper singles home Johan Rojas to tie it.

Tim Hill, another lefty, prolongs the game until the 12th, when Rojas bunts over the Manfred Man and Kyle Schwarber lofts an RBI sacrifice fly. Phillies win, 7-6, and the Padres are 44-50.

JULY 31

Testing their ability to botch long games at altitude, the Padres come to Colorado and, with two out in the top of the ninth, get a game-tying homer from Grisham off Justin Lawrence. Tatis kills the vibe, though, by striking out with Kim on second.

San Diego, always topping itself, loads the bases with nobody out in the 10th off the most bedraggled pitching staff in the league. So Bogaerts grounds out, Cronenworth lines out, and Gary Sanchez grounds out. You don’t really have to be told that Colorado wins, 4-3, in the 10th, when Ryan McMahon, facing his own bases loaded situation against Nick Martinez, hits a simple sacrifice fly. The Padres fall to 52-55.

AUGUST 29

The Cardinals, another team just waiting for hunting season, play host to the Padres. For a while it appeared the Padres would take care of business in regulation. Kim’s sacrifice fly in the eighth put them ahead 5-3. But Willson Contreras struck back with a two-out homer off Robert Suarez in the Cardinals’ eighth.

San Diego’s stars did nothing in their ninth, but the Padres got Hader into the game in the 10th. It didn’t matter. Again St. Louis played the old-style game, with a sacrifice that sent Masyn Winn to third, and Winn scored on Tommy Edman’s base hit. San Diego slumped to 62-71, superior to only four N.L. teams.

Only two teams have failed to win an extra-inning game in a full season. The record is 0-13, by the Montreal Expos of 1969. That is also the year the Padres were born, with 52 wins, with Clay Kirby going 7-20 and with Nate Colbert hitting 24 home runs. 

It’s been 54 years and the Padres have played only eight World Series games, losing them all. But not until 2023 did their fans learn how the other half dies.