SAN DIEGO — Maybe this was the most fitting end.
The San Diego Padres, the biggest teases of this major-league season, played highlight-reel baseball Sunday afternoon. Right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. robbed a home run with one of the catches of the year. Left fielder Juan Soto made two impressive snags of his own and walloped a 461-foot home run, the Padres’ longest this season in downtown San Diego. In a 12-2 romp against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Padres piled up 18 hits, their most in a game this year at Petco Park. They did it in front of an announced crowd of 42,505, the Padres’ 61st and final sellout of 2023. It was a home finale to remember.
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And it has been a year to remember, for more bad than good. The Padres on Saturday night tied a record for extra-inning futility and saw their faint playoff hopes all but expire. They are 15-6 in September but just 77-79 overall, and they could be officially eliminated from contention as soon as Monday, when they open a season-ending road trip in San Francisco.
Even some of the good will double as a painful reminder. Not including two “home” games in Mexico City, Petco Park in 2023 drew a franchise-record cumulative attendance of 3,232,310 and a franchise-record average of 40,915 per game. Unless the Padres win at least four of their final six contests, they and the last-place Cardinals will be the first teams since the 2019 Los Angeles Angels to finish below .500 despite selling more than 3 million tickets.
“What the fans did with us this year, they’re the real MVP,” Tatis said. “We’re just grateful, and we’re gonna take that into the offseason and remember it (in) every single workout, because they definitely deserve more.”
Sunday afternoon, for one last time at home, demonstrated what could have been. Soto, up with no outs in the bottom of the first, drove in three runs with his tape-measure homer. The offense secured insurance runs in each of the next five innings. Padres starter Michael Wacha, pitching against his former team, threw seven innings of two-run baseball with a dazzling assist in the top of the sixth. That was when Tatis elevated above the 8-foot wall in right field to prevent what would have been a two-run homer by Cardinals rookie Michael Siani.
SOMEONE CALL THE COPS BC WE'D LIKE TO REPORT A ROBBERY 😱
⭐️ @tatis_jr pic.twitter.com/fP91IKRO4j
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) September 24, 2023
Tatis could soon become the Padres’ first Gold Glove Award winner as a primary right fielder since Tony Gwynn in 1991. He now has a home run robbery to boost his case.
“I think that’s the No. 1 (catch I’ve seen),” Soto said.
“You won’t see a better play than that, as far as that play goes,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said.
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“He’s been making big-time plays all year for us,” Wacha said.
“It felt amazing,” Tatis said. “I felt like a superhero or something like that.”
The Padres, however, were long ago unmasked as decidedly human. They have compiled the National League’s third-best run differential, yet they trail 29 other teams with a 7-22 record in one-run games and 0-12 extra-inning mark, tied for the worst in major-league history. Saturday’s 11-inning loss provided an apt distillation of their struggles in pressure situations: San Diego went hitless after the bottom of the seventh and finished 1-for-17 with runners in scoring position.
Sunday, the Padres continued their season-long Jekyll and Hyde act. It has been a maddening summer of extremes.
“We’ve played this game a lot,” Melvin said. “We’ve played the other game a lot. We just haven’t had enough in the middle to where we’ve taken advantage of close games, especially here at home with our fans engaged. … It’s been two different teams and two different types of games. And how to explain it, I wish I could. I have been trying to do it here for almost an entire season.”
461 ft? Yeah, that ball is So(to) gone. pic.twitter.com/Z19cCdjD0N
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) September 24, 2023
A lack of answers could soon lead to the latest organizational reckoning in A.J. Preller’s nine-year tenure as general manager. There has been widespread speculation that Melvin, who has a year left on his contract, will either voluntarily leave the organization or be fired after the season. Team officials have acknowledged that the Padres’ payroll — currently at a franchise-record $255 million — likely will be pared down in 2024.
Such an effort could involve exploring potential trades of Soto, the team’s best hitter but also a player who could be due $30 million or so in his final year before free agency. Wacha, one of the team’s most reliable starting pitchers, can venture into the open market if the Padres choose to decline his two-year, $32 million club option. So, these two standouts might have made their final home appearances at Petco Park. The same might be true for NL Cy Young favorite Blake Snell and three-time NL Reliever of the Year Josh Hader.
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“It’s really a fun place to pitch, and the atmosphere has been great all season,” Wacha said. “And we’ll see what happens, I guess. But I absolutely loved pitching here.”
The crowds, according to Wacha and others on the team, have been the greatest source of enjoyment amid consistent disappointment. The Padres finished 42-37 at Petco Park (with a plus-66 run differential) while averaging a sellout per game. At one point, they drew 25 consecutive sellouts. In September, they sold out eight of 12 games as they inched toward all-but-guaranteed elimination. Although season-ticket prices will increase in 2024 by a weighted average of 9 percent, team employees claim there have been a substantial number of renewals.
Late Sunday afternoon, Melvin applauded the crowd as he walked off the field at Petco Park, perhaps for the final time.
“They’ve been amazing, regardless. It’s easy to be kind of fair-weather and then not show up when things aren’t going well, but they have the entire season,” Melvin said. “They do it for us. We should do it for them.”
About half an hour later, Manny Machado stood at his locker and pondered a question about attendance. The third baseman had received a day off as he continues trying to finish the season with a case of tennis elbow. Still, it was the local media’s final opportunity to solicit his thoughts inside the Petco Park clubhouse in 2023.
Did Machado, despite this year’s epic letdown, expect similar fan support in 2024?
“This fan base is one of the best fan bases in the game, and they showed it this year,” Machado said. “I expect the same thing next year, maybe even more.
“I will say, next year, I think we’ll be better. I think we’re going to perform a lot better. I think we’re going to exceed expectations and they’re going to be out there to support us no matter what. They showed us all year this year that they’re capable of doing that, and next year, I think it’s gonna be the same thing.”
(Photo of Fernando Tatis Jr. robbing a home run: Matt Thomas / San Diego Padres / Getty Images)
