Which, I suppose, a fair amount of you are guilty of; they haven't exactly been playing the best baseball this season. The Padres are almost universally ranked at (or near) the bottom of every major power ranking, and they sit in the basement of the competitive NL West, after all.
Well, time to get out from under the rock. The Padres have won five straight, and swept the Chicago Cubs- the reigning World Series champions. Watch that above video if you still don't believe me.
Yeah, me too, Patrick. Me too.
(See what I did with the rock reference earlier? Somebody give me an award! If you were born before 1980 and reading this, that pink starfish looking character you can see above lives under a rock. Hope that clears things up.)
Anyways, this "winning" thing probably isn't sustainable for the rest of the season. More than likely, the Padres will regress to the mean and lose more than their fair share of games. When things are said and done, that loss total very well could exceed 100, which hasn't happened since 1993. Five games out of a one-hundred-and-sixty-two marathon of a season might not seem like a whole lot- but as the title implies... this season isn't about instant gratification. It's about enjoying the little things.
These five games constitute the longest Padre winning streak of the season. That very well could end tonight against the upstart Rockies- but for now... we rejoice! By the very definition of a "winning streak", the Padres are playing the best baseball they have played all year.
Remember that sweep against the Cubs? The Padres won every single game of the series in comeback fashion against the reigning World. Series. Champions.
That's pretty impressive (and statistically unlikely) for any team. It was also cause for Chicagoland sports writers to bemoan the end of the Cubs World-Series-victory honeymoon and declare their return to the "land of mediocrity" they had previously occupied during their 108 seasons of pre-2016 championship glory. The fact that the Padres, who were the same team ESPN said had no reason for hope this season, did it against the media-darling Cubs, is a cause for celebration.
If you read my last article- I mentioned how ignorant and foolish ESPN was to say that. I won't tread down that road again of why that is- but like I said before, bad start notwithstanding; this team is still overflowing with reasons for hope.
You can see those reasons in every go-ahead home run Austin Hedges hits (by the way, that kid has been looking like the league's next star catcher- an All-Star this year, maybe?), every spectacular catch Manny Margot makes in center field, and in every clutch strikeout Dinelson Lamet records. These, again, are reasons to celebrate.
For this Padres team, these fleeting, isolated moments scattered throughout the season- these "little things"- are glimpses of a future that is blindingly bright.
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