Baseball is back, folks! This offseason was like the fourth season of Breaking Bad: we thought we would be getting constant breakneck action, but much of the time our domaine-craving minds became frustrated because it was much more slow and plodding than we desired.
However, this offseason was a masterclass in suspense: you'd be lying if you said you weren't on the edge of your seat most of the time, waiting for the next big shoe to drop. As the months and numerous thoughts of "finally-something's-gonna-happen-oh-wait-nevermind" (Noah Syndegaard! Dallas Kuechel!! wtf is debt reduction???? lmao we really signed Ian Kinsler? BROWN UNIFORMS!!!! DINNER WITH BRYCE HARPER IN VEGAS!!!!!) passed, we all expected SOMETHING to happen, we just weren't sure what.
But thankfully, much like the Season 4 finale of Breaking Bad, our patience was rewarded when everything climaxed in an absolutely thrilling crescendo: by signing Manny Machado, the Padres detonated a surprise pipe bomb unto all of Major League Baseball, killing the hopes and dreams of White Sox fans across the Southside in the process.
As Walter White so eloquently put it in the season 4 finale:
Padre fans, when it comes to this offseason, we won indeed.
But as we all know, winning the offseason is meaningless. We were optimistic in 2015 about all the flashy trades made that winter, but I think in the back of our minds, we all knew that something wasn't quite right. Matt Kemp and James Shields were already past their primes. Justin Upton was only going to be here one year. There was a ton of smoke, but no actual fire- none of the pieces we acquired quite fit and once again, the Padres sucked.
Perhaps what sucked worst of all, though, was trading for Wil Myers, who a guy everybody thought would become a superstar, but as of yet had been unable to live up to his potential, despite some flashes of true five-tool talent. Maybe he would finally breakout in Petco, we attempted to persuade ourselves into thinking. Can we really be blamed, though? The owners also tried to convince themselves of the same thing, and gave him the largest contract in team history at the time, even though it came on the heels of yet another promising-yet-mostly-inconsistent performance in 2016.
But in the end, we were wrong, of course. Instead, we were saddled with continually mediocre production (at best) from Myers, and the pain of knowing we gave up Trea Turner to get him, who actually became that superstar for the Nationals that we all thought that Wil Myers would become.
Flash forward to March 28th, 2019, though. It's Opening Day and the Padres are playing the Giants.
The game is still scoreless as Myers comes to the plate in the bottom of the third with two outs- and it looks to stay that way, as he soon falls behind 0-2 in the count to Madison Bumgarner, who again looks like one of the better pitchers in baseball.
Thanks to a very clutch invite from Sean McKay (the Official #1 Friend Of The Blog), him, I, and two of Sean's friends from work are sitting in the stands. The four of us are amongst the over-44,000 people in the sold out crowd; the energy, excitement, and most importantly, the hope for what is to come is palpable.
Perhaps in another year devoid of such excitement- one where Manny Machado isn't on the team, or where Fernando Tatis Jr. and Chris Paddack are still developing in the lower echelons of minor league baseball- Myers would have struck out.
Instead though, Myers barreled the next off-speed pitch from Bumgarner over the right center-field wall, and into the packed standing-room-only Ballast Point outdoor bar in right center-field.
At first, the hundreds of tipsy Padres fans in the vicinity hastily dispersed to run for cover wherever they could find it, but almost as quickly, the mob reconverged on the site where the ball had landed in a mad dash to claim the historic souvenir for themselves.
Myers' home run put the Padres up for good, and the team won on Opening Day for the first time since 2014. For the first time in a long time, everything just felt right.
The game was sold out, not because Opening Day was a good excuse to skip work and get day drunk (even though it might also be that too), but because people actually wanted to watch Padres baseball- and the players rewarded them for it.
For those fleeting moments as he rounded the bases, Myers felt like the superstar we all thought he could become- but it wasn't just him: Eric Lauer, despite my doubts at first, absolutely pitched like somebody who deserved to take the mound on Opening Day, becoming the youngest Opening Day starter since Clayton Kershaw to pitch at least shutout six innings, while Tatis Jr. became the youngest player to have a multi-hit game since Hall of Famer Robin Yount in 1975. It didn't even matter that Manny Machado struck out twice and hit into a double play- the weather was picturesque, the hot dogs were fresh, the Ballast Point-branded Padres beer was absolutely excellent, and the home team won.
Indeed, Opening Day 2019 has come and gone, and OUR SAN DIEGO PADRES are over .500 for the first time since June 2015(!!!!!)- for context, I didn't start this blog until 2016. Not much in the world has improved since the last time the Padres were above .500, but baseball is a game built on hope and faith- and exactly that has returned to Petco Park in 2019.
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