A season after winning the franchise’s only World Series, the Texas Rangers wish their fan support could match that of the trophy-less, treading-water Padres.
Large, loud crowds near or at ballpark capacity, such as the announced paid sellout of 42,132 Sunday, have become the norm at Petco Park.
Padres games have become a happening. Doesn’t matter the day or the opponent — or, for that matter, how the Padres have been playing. There’s a palpable hunger downtown, and it’s for more than fish tacos and other ballpark food.
A year after finishing second of 30 big-league clubs in home attendance, the Padres stand fourth while keeping turnstile-clicking company with the big-market Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and Braves, who sit first, second, third and fifth.
The announced average of 40,227 tickets sold per game through 54 dates puts the Padres seven spots and 8,000 fans per ahead of the Rangers.
It wasn’t for lack of fan enthusiasm that the Padres lost 6-3 to the Braves, dropping them to 50-49 entering the All-Star break.
Most fans wore some sort of Padres merchandise: gold-and-brown pinstriped jerseys, brown Luis Arraez T-Shirts, sherbert-colored City Connect jerseys and an array of “SD” ballcaps and floppy hats.
When Manny Machado rocketed Braves ace Chris Sale’s first-pitch fastball for a single in the first inning, sending Donavan Solano to third base and heading to a 1-0 lead, the crowd was nearly October-loud.
Even with their team down 5-1 in the seventh inning, the fans roared when rookie Sean Reynolds escaped by throwing a fastball by slugger Austin Riley for his first career strikeout. Many fans stood and cheered as the 6-foot-8 reliever walked toward the dugout.
They went bonkers in the home half of the seventh, when pinch-hitter Luis Campusano bashed an opposite-field homer, cutting the margin to 5-3.
Almost everyone in the ballpark stuck around until Jurickson Profar’s soft liner landed in a Brave’s glove for the final out.
Color veteran MLB-ers on the Braves as impressed, but not surprised, by the three capacity crowds that saw Atlanta take the series, two games to one.
“Very underrated place,” Sale, an eight-time All-Star who won a World Series with the 2018 Red Sox, said of Petco Park.
Braves bench coach Walt Weiss, a former shortstop, has spent nearly 40 years in the big leagues.
“San Diego’s obviously a good sports town,” he said. “It’s a shame they don’t have a football team anymore, but it’s a great place to play. Everyone loves coming to San Diego. Now that they’re drawing well, it’s good for the team, it’s good for baseball.”
Weiss played shortstop for the ’98 Braves squad that faced the franchise-best Padres team in the NLCS. Crowds for those games in Mission Valley ranged from 59,000 to 65,000. Weiss said he could still feel the thumping base from the stadium’s loudspeakers.
In smaller Petco Park, even a World Series wouldn’t raise the decibels as high as in ’98. “I’ve never hear louder crowds,” said Weiss, who won a World Series with the ’89 Athletics.
The winningest club of the Petco Park Era, the 2010 team that somehow won 90 games on a $38.6-million payroll, never generated half the buzz that has now become the norm for Padres clubs.
Last year, the Padres congealed only after it was too late, resulting in the franchise’s most disappointing of seasons.
In the offseason, the player payroll, third in MLB, was slashed by some $90 million to 14th.
Yet the crowds haven’t been reduced.
Before Padres starting pitcher Randy Vásquez threw his first pitch Sunday, fans acted like they’d arrived at a baseball shrine. They posed for pictures inside and outside of the ballpark. They stood and smiled front of Padres posters — including one of Arraez, who didn’t join this team until May; and Xander Bogaerts, who’s still trying to find his groove since signing the big contract before last season.
They bought drinks in glittering cups honoring Fernando Tatis Jr.’s Platinum Glove award. They wore giveaway basketball jerseys featuring “San Diego Joe” Musgrove, who’s been sidelined most of the season. (The sleeveless Musgrove jersey, given away at the June 11 game, is going for $50 online on Ebay).
A middle-aged man near me watched as attentively as the big leaguers did in the outfield. He brought a Rawlings glove.
A woman with him clapped for almost every Padres player, calling each one by his first name.
“I don’t think San Diego gets the love or respect” it deserves as a baseball market, said Sale. “This is a great place to play. It’s a great ballpark.”
Padres crowds are numbering about 6,000 fans more than in big-market Houston, where the Astros have gone to four of the past seven World Series.
In Phoenix, where the Diamondbacks are coming off a World Series season, the average crowd stands about 13,000 smaller.
What’s going on here?
Along with Peter Seidler’s gusto toward winning a World Series, the ballpark’s charms, the Chargers’ exit, the taste of October Baseball in 2022 and the smart decision to roll out brown-and-gold merchandise in 2020, San Diego’s weather expands the franchise’s pull.
Forced to leave because of housing prices, many San Diego transplants who now live in hotter regions can attest that visiting downtown San Diego provides a refreshing relief. (NASA researchers found this month that Phoenix’s asphalt and concrete surfaces can cause contact burns in seconds.)
The Padres’ big baseball bets of 2022 and 2023 not panning out have cut into the trophy odds, but if the baseball gods have a heart, the Padres will give San Diegans and former San Diegans that first World Series trophy sooner than later.
Grades at the break
The Padres are foremost a business, so let’s start there. Give them an A grade for placing fourth in attendance. Inconvenient question: If you were the CPA now running the team, would you cut the payroll again this offseason, on the logic that the fans will still come?
As for the baseball, give Mike Shildt’s first club a C+ for the season’s first half (actually, 99 games). It’s another season of “wild card or bust” and “get in and get hot,” as it’s become a fait accompli that the Padres cannot win the NL West race no matter how many injuries the Dodgers sustain.
A.J. Preller made several clever moves in response to the massive payroll reduction dating to November. He’ll have to add pitching and perhaps a fourth outfielder before the July 30 trade deadline to help this team challenge for a playoff spot.
As for Sunday’s game, it was a contest the Padres were supposed to lose because it paired Sale, an ace who is now Atlanta’s first 13-game winner at the break since Hall of Famer John Smoltz in 1996, against Vásquez.
The Braves won the series clincher more than the Padres lost it. Braves third-baseman Austin Riley pulled a Machado, stealing a two-run single from Ha-Seong Kim by spearing a one-hop smash to his left, gloving the ball behind him before rising fast and throwing a strike. “Changed the landscape of the game,” said Sale, noting his deficit would’ve grown to 3-0.
When, later, Vásquez began in the windup — a miscue — Braves baserunner Travis d’Arnaud noticed and easily stole second base. “That’s an IQ play,” Sale said. The catcher’s first theft since 2020, it led to a tie-breaking run. Matt Olson, going to school on Vasquez’s surprise sweeper that whiffed him in the first, cracked a first-pitch sweeper for a tying single.
Two home runs by d’Arnauld totaling nearly 900 feet ensured Padres fans’ good times wouldn’t culminate in a victory.
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