Good morning from Sacramento,

Winning feels good anywhere.

And the Padres are winning everywhere.

On Sunday, they salvaged a victory in the finale of a series at what is arguably baseball’s most iconic ballpark. On Monday, they won the opener of a series at baseball’s least-major league park.

They have the best record in the major leagues and, at 9-2, have matched the best start in franchise history.

The other two times a Padres team started this well: 1984 and 1998, the only two seasons that have ended with the Padres playing in the World Series.

The ‘84 Padres got to 10-2, the ‘98 Padres to 11-2.

The Padres have talked for multiple springs about wanting to get off to a fast start. This year, they have done it by basically just continuing what they were doing last year — winning in different ways, doing so even when things don’t go great, adding on crucial runs late, closing out tight games.

Sounds familiar, actually. But it wasn’t until the second half of last season the Padres started doing those things consistently.

“It feels a lot like last year, but better,” Cronenworth said. “I mean, it’s like everybody knows what our identity is, what we need to do to achieve that. And I think that’s the biggest thing. Once we show up here every day, it’s like it’s a new game. How can we win today? I think it’s really been instilled in everybody since that midway point of last year.

“I think the biggest thing is the group. A lot of the guys are the same. We all felt it. We saw what it looked like. And it’s one of those things, when it works, you have the offseason to think about it, and everybody comes back to spring training, and you see the same familiar faces. It’s kind of like, let’s just keep doing what we’re doing.”

Teams always talk big in spring training. When they come out and do what they said they would do for the reasons they said they would do them, that is rare.

This is what Joe Musgrove said in my story from opening day (here) about the culture Mike Shildt and the Padres have built over the past year:

“By the end of the year, we had the whole team pointing in one direction, truly. Same mindset, same approach and just a willingness to do what the game was telling us we needed to do. Ultimately, it’s the most important thing — way less selfish mentality of sacrificing your own personal success for the team. But I think everybody was enjoying the way we felt when we were winning. And like you start to realize that’s, like, the important part of it.”

They’re trying

You can read my game story (here) to see how last night’s 5-4 victory over the Athletics went down. I touched a little bit on the experience of the game at Sutter Health Park, the minor-league ballpark that is the A’s home this year and next (and maybe longer as they wait for their Las Vegas ballpark to be built).

No matter how much you try to make it charming, the experience here is just not major league.

The fans at the game seemed to be having a heck of a time. That doesn’t make it OK that a major league team is playing at a minor-league ballpark. It’s not right for the A’s players or their fans in Oakland. And it simply is a bad look.

To be clear, though, the Athletics employees and workers at Sutter Health Park seem to be doing everything they can to make the experience enjoyable for fans and tolerable for the players. Kudos to them.

West is best?

Three of the four best records in MLB are held by teams in the National League West.

“Yeah, everybody knows this is the best division in baseball,” Tatis said.

“There’s a lot of great teams in our division,” Cronenworth said. “It seems like it’s been like that since I’ve been here — the last 5½, six years. It’s just really good teams, and it’s always fun to play great competition.”

Since 2020, Cronenworth’s rookie year and the first of three times the Padres made the playoffs in the past five seasons, the Dodgers have the best winning percentage in baseball (.649) while the Padres (.541) rank eighth and the Giants (.535) ninth. No other division has three teams in the top nine.

He’s on

We have talked a lot about Fernando Tatis Jr.’s patience at the plate and it being perhaps the biggest sign he is locked in.

It truly does seem like another level of focus out of the 26-year-old slugger, which many in the organization predicted after seeing him for just a few days in spring training. I wrote (here) about what Tatis and others were saying back in February.

The different level he is playing on manifested last night.

Yes, he finished 2-for-4 and hit a majestic home run that bounced off the top of the two story clubhouse on the outer rim of the ballpark.

But it was that both of those came in the at-bats after his third-inning strikeout that said the most.

That wasn’t just any strikeout. It was a three-pitch strikeout that ended with him flailing at a pitch low and outside, his achilles.

Time and again in his career, such an at-bat has led to another at-bat just like it. And often, it has led to a skid lasting several more at-bats.

“Definitely making better adjustments,” Tatis said. “You know, I can probably take one pitch when it doesn’t look right. But then I get back to it, or next at-bat flip the page and get back (to) what I’m supposed to do — trust my hands and man, it’s just a lot of hard work and right approach at the plate right now.

“You keep growing every single year. You learn how to make quicker adjustments. You learn how to not take one at-bat to the other. And really proud of how I’m turning the page and how quick I’m making those adjustments.”

Tatis’ six multi-hit games this season are tied for second-most in the major leagues. His .449 on-base percentage ranks 10th. HIs five strikeouts are tied for fewest in an 11-game span in his career.

“If Fernando Tatis takes his walks and manages the strike zone like he’s doing now, you’re gonna continue to see what you’re seeing now,” Shildt said. “And that’s the elite offensive capability.”

Tatis, the meme

The game-deciding home run Tatis hit in the seventh inning last night cleared the wall in left field and the patio atop the first story of an outbuilding beyond that wall and landed on the roof of the two-story home team clubhouse.

Here is video of the home run.

The foul line at Sutter Home Park is 330 feet from home plate, and the wall juts out another 10 or so feet almost immediately. There is a 10-foot alley between the wall and the first building and then another 50 feet (at least) of patio before the building on which Tatis’ blast landed.

And Statcast had the ball traveling a projected 406 feet.

“Yeah, that’s cap,” Tatis said. “Straight cap.”

A cap, for those of you over 40, is a lie.

King’s night

Manny Machado made an excellent play to help Michael King to a quick fifth inning. Machado being unable to make another fine play is all that kept King from completing six innings and having a quality start for the first time in his three starts.

The 103 mph grounder that went off Machado’s glove was the eighth hit King allowed in 5⅔ innings, and he was lifted for Adrián Morejón, who ended the inning with a three-pitch strikeout.

“I felt like I had stuff to go a lot deeper into the game, but it’s just how the game goes,” King, who also walked two batters while yielding three runs. “Very happy that we put up enough runs to win.”

King became the first Padres pitcher to pass 100 pitches (101) in a game this season. He threw that many because of his eight three-ball counts and because the Padres didn’t make a few plays behind him that they might have.

He also had a five-pitch, three-groundout inning and another inning in which he walked two batters, landed just six pitches in the strike zone and still threw just 13 pitches. He got four misses on eight swings against is slider three misses on 11 swings against his changeup and three misses on eight swings against his sweeper.

“I felt like all my pitches were very good,” he said. “Command, shapes, everything was very good. So coming away 5⅔ with three runs feels, you know …”

Tidbits

• My pregame notebook (here) dealt with two significant pieces of news — Jackson Merrill missing yesterday’s game with a balky hamstring and Joe Musgrove playing catch for the first time since Tommy John surgery.
• Luis Arraez was 2-for-4 and scored twice last night. He is now 12-for-27 since starting the season 0-for-16.
• Cronenworth hit his second home run of the season and moved into the team lead by drawing his seventh walk. He has reached base in all but two games this season. HIs .405 on-base percentage is third on the team behind Tatis (.449) and Merrill (.415).
• Machado had his second two-double game of the season.
• On Machado’s third-inning double, Arraez ran from first to home to put the Padres up 4-0. It was the fifth time a Padres player has scored from first on a double this season, tied for most in the majors.
• Jason Heyward was 1-for-4 and is batting .136 (3-for-22).
• Yuli Gurriel grounded out as a pinch-hitter and is 1-for-14 this season. That makes today’s lineup choice by Shildt interesting, as the Padres are facing a left-handed starter. Gurriel has been the DH against all four opposing lefty starters this season. But it is possible Shildt gives Jose Iglesias a start at second base, moves Cronenworth to first and has Arraez DH tonight against Jeffrey Springs.

All right, that’s it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Originally Published: April 8, 2025 at 6:30 AM PDT