How the Padres got off to a fast start to a pivotal season

New York Times

28-03-2025

SAN DIEGO — The day before the most crucial season of his young career and, perhaps, this San Diego Padres decade, Jackson Merrill considered a certain question: Where did he feel his club could improve the most after last season?
Merrill did not think for long before responding. Nor did he talk about easing into the marathon that awaited the Padres.
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'Get off to a hot start, you know? Hit the ground running,' Merrill told reporters Wednesday. 'Last year, we were really, really good in the second half. Like, the best record in baseball in the second half. But, if you do that in the first half, we win the division. … We were .500 at the All-Star break pretty much, so you kind of (need to) get to a hot start and win games off the rip.'
Technically, it was all true, even if the 2024 club demonstrated it is not imperative to win right away.
Those Padres were 14-18 after 32 games. They heard boos at Petco Park after a dreadful Colorado Rockies team swept them in May. They were 50-49 — .500, pretty much — at the All-Star break. Then, they won 43 of their final 63 games, the best second-half record in baseball. Had they played at the same pace in the first half, they would have won 111 games.
The 2025 Padres do not need to win 111 games. But what they do in the first half will go a long way toward determining what the roster looks like in the second. There might be enough talent on this club to finish what the Padres failed to complete in October (advance past the National League Division Series). There certainly is enough talent to help other would-be contenders. And now, there are 108 games left before the July trade deadline.
Thursday's 7-4 win against the formidable Atlanta Braves, then, could loom larger than most games when a bigger picture forms. The Padres fell behind in the first inning and again in the third and fourth. They also looked much like the team that flourished last summer, running and rallying their way to success.
''Grit squad' was on display,' manager Mike Shildt said.
So was the Padres' talent. Merrill became the first player age 21 or younger to drive in four runs on Opening Day since new teammate Jason Heyward did it in his big-league debut with the Braves in 2010. Fernando Tatis Jr. collected three hits. Manny Machado doubled twice. Six relievers combined to hold the Braves to one run after starter Michael King exited in the top of the third with an elevated early-season pitch count.
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Yet, other contributions and details felt equally significant. Like Merrill's tying, groundout RBI. Or Gavin Sheets' tying, full-count, pinch hit home run to dead center. Or the five stolen bases accumulated by Tatis (two), Machado (two) and Xander Bogaerts (one). Or the first-to-third jaunt by Heyward, who entered as a pinch runner. Or the fact that Merrill's sacrifice fly to cap a decisive, four-run seventh was possible because Machado ran hard and slid just in time.
Holy Sheets 🤯 pic.twitter.com/qoC5S3CbZp
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) March 27, 2025
'The big numbers, the home runs, the RBIs, things like that, they are always fun to have as a group. When you have that superstar power like this team does, as well,' Heyward said. 'But when you can run the bases and you can have at-bats that are going to slow the game down in big spots, you can keep pressure on that defense, make their pitchers coming out of the bullpen keep making big pitches.
'Even their starter … heck of a game by him, but he had to make a lot of big pitches today.'
The defending NL Cy Young winner agreed.
'Their team's always tough,' Chris Sale said after throwing five innings of three-run baseball. 'There's high emotions (on Opening Day). But it was just a grind literally from the first batter. You know, they're just relentless. That's a good team. That's a good ballclub.'
It remains too early, of course, to know just how good these Padres are. They added minimal payroll in free agency and lost multiple key regulars in the offseason. One of those players, Jurickson Profar, led off Thursday for the Braves, scored the afternoon's first run and worked a 12-pitch at-bat before Austin Riley hit a go-ahead home run.
Without the likes of Profar, Ha-Seong Kim and Kyle Higashioka, concerns about the Padres' depth figure to linger. The bottom four starters in the lineup combined to go 2-for-13 with a pair of singles by Elias Díaz, who looked uncomfortable catching King's array of sharply moving pitches at times. Before the game, Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said veteran pitcher Yu Darvish was progressing in playing catch, but there was no specific timetable for his return from elbow inflammation.
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Depth, Preller indicated, was a factor in the Padres' decision to open the season with players such as Yuli Gurriel, 40, and Martín Maldonado, 38. Gurriel and Maldonado are the majors' oldest position player and catcher, but the Padres would have risked losing them if they had not made the Opening Day roster.
'It's a long season,' Preller said. 'I think you can get caught up in one day.'
Still, it was an important day. The Padres announced the largest season-opening crowd in Petco Park history (45,568). The roars crescendoed in the bottom of the first as Tatis led off with a single, Tatis and Machado each stole a base and Merrill, after falling behind 0-2 against Sale, one-handed a two-run single into center field.
It was the kind of approach that set a tone.
'I had a blast today just watching the way we took advantage on the bases and stealing third twice and double-stealing and Manny scoring on the sac fly by Jackson,' said Sheets, a newcomer to the organization. 'Just the way we put so much pressure on the other team.'
Considering the way other NL teams fortified their rosters over the winter, the Padres will need to maintain that pressure throughout the season. It helps that they have already proved they can.
'The emphasis all spring training was (to) continue to grow, right? Continue to grow from where we left off last year,' Machado said. 'We've learned from each other, we've learned how to deal with these situations, and (we are) just continuing to get better at it.'
For a day at least, the pressure was palpable. The Padres went 3-for-3 when attempting to steal third. Tatis, who appears unleashed after playing last season with a stress reaction in his right leg, accounted for two of those thefts. And twice, in a tight game, such boldness led to a run.
'It just provides culture. It provides trust in each other,' Merrill said. 'Like, we're out there watching Tati — as soon as he shuffles on second base, none of us are like, 'No, no, no, no!' All of us are like, 'Hell, yeah.''
(Photo of Manny Machado scoring in the seventh inning ahead of the throw to catcher Drake Baldwin: Denis Poroy / Imagn Images)