Now that the Padres season is over after losing the NLDS 3-1 to the Milwaukee Brewers, some musings from this series:
Whether Ty France’s fly ball that hit the roof would have been foul, caught in the field of play or a home run without hitting the roof, the biggest thing to me is the American Family Field ground rules with hitting the roof. I know other ballparks have similar rules but it doesn’t make sense to me that a ball that hits the roof has different rules in fair and foul territory. And it doesn’t make sense that the fair territory treats it as though it didn’t hit anything, when it clearly did hitting the roof which changed the ball’s trajectory, like if it hit the outfield wall. So I’m not sure why this wouldn’t just be considered a ground rule double or a dead ball since it’s not longer caught off the bat like a normal fly ball.
I’m not sure why Randy Vasquez was on the roster while Walker Buehler was on the paternity list for the first two games of the series. I actually saw that as a genius move to have Vasquez available for two games but would have expected him to piggyback Robbie Ray (to have a righty after the lefty) in Game 1 or throw some innings in relief considering his good numbers against the Brewers, though he last faced them in 2025. Especially considering the Padres were only carrying 11 pitchers, the tenuous situation of the starters and not wanting to overuse the bullpen.
I’m not surprised the Padres would have Morejon go out for a second inning in Game 1 even after giving up the lead. He’s done two innings many times this season and in the playoffs you still want to keep a deficit as is for you to have a chance to come back (which had potential with the Ty France roof ball). Just ended up being bad luck when he had a sore shoulder and didn’t pitch the rest of the series.
Game 2 with Mason Miller trying to get a six out save also wasn’t surprising. He had three days off and it was the 2-3-4 hitters in the 8th inning so I can see why you go to your closer for six outs and other teams have done it in previous postseasons and this one as well. You would hope in the 9th inning he would just go right after the bottom of the lineup (especially when Gary Sanchez was the pinch hitter for the #9 spot) as bringing Jackson Chourio up is a bad recipe with Miller laboring at that point and Chourio being a good fastball hitter. Once the Padres got down 0-2 after losing this game this way, you just had a bad feeling for climbing out of this hole against a really good team.
Kudos to Michael King for starting Game 2 and then closing out the last six outs of Game 3. That’s a difficult ask regardless of using a bullpen day to pitch instead and shows you what a gamer he is. It’s unfortunate that he couldn’t go longer in Game 2 as he was dealing with a no hitter for 4 2/3 innings before starting to run out of gas in the 5th. I don’t mind the move to bring in the bullpen in the bottom of the 6th when this happened in Game 2 because it’s the playoffs and King has had some blowup innings this season.
With the season over (wait til next year again for us Padres fans), I would try re-signing King, Morejon and France. Morejon is probably going to be the toughest because it doesn’t make sense to sign him to closer money if Miller is going to continue to be the primary closer so some other team will offer him a really big deal to be their closer.
We’ll see how long the lockout is and if the owners do get their salary cap. I would guess we won’t miss the whole season but will miss some time, maybe a month or two since I don’t see the sides really negotiating until February 2027 when spring training would start. So see you sometime next season and hopefully we get a full season.
With the Padres winning the Wild Card Series over the Chicago Cubs, some musings from the series:
The series went as well as the Padres could have hoped for. In Game 1, Michael King throwing 7 innings of one hit ball, offense building a big lead, Yuki Matsui pitching the 8th inning (he’s been good this year but didn’t pitch in the postseason last year so good to give him a softer landing spot for his first postseason action) and then having Joe Musgrove return for the first time in two years and close it out (even if it got a little dicey with him loading the bases) set it up to hae a pretty rested bullpen for Game 2.
Nick Pivetta was only able to go 3 1/3 innings in Game 2 and struggled in the 3rd and 4th innings, but this was where you were able to fully take advantage of the bullpen. Can’t ask for much more than what the bullpen did covering 5 2/3 innings with no runs, two hits and one walk.
The offense scoring first in both games was huge as it gave them the momentum to start. The Padres are much better at home (51-30 vs 40-41 during the regular season) where the team thrives off the crowd and getting off to quick starts in both games helped amplify that.
Speaking of the Wild Card Series roster, was surprised they went with 15 position players and 11 pitchers. I get that it’s a short series but thought they might carry 12 in case they needed long relief for the three games. Even though I heard rumblings of Musgrove, still was quite shocked to see him on the roster, though replacing Vasquez makes sense now since he had pitched Sunday and threw 68 pitches and 6 innings, considering Robbie Ray and/or Walker Buehler could cover the middle innings. You figure you wouldn’t use him as much in this round and he’d be rested and more available for the Division Series if the Padres advanced.
Was great to see Musgrove out there. Even though he looked a little rusty and/or had the nerves, he was still getting his fastball up to 96-97 mph like before. Hopefully he’s recovering well and they can deploy him for an inning (maybe even as an opener) during this playoff series.
Since I guessed the roster for the Wild Card Series, I’ll do it again for the Division Series against the Brewers and see the roster as follows:
Pitchers (12): Michael King, Nick Pivetta, Walker Buehler, Robbie Ray, Jason Adam, Yuki Matsui, Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon, David Morgan, Bradgley Rodriguez, Randy Vasquez and Joe Musgrove. Since they only went with 11 in the last round, I see them adding just one more this time to carry all three catchers again and with a max of two games in a row before a day off and the bullpen being not used heavily in the past week. Starting from Sunday 9/27 of the last day of the season where only Vasquez and Griffin Canning pitched until Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday 10/3, each pitcher will have only thrown once in the past six days.
Position Players (14): Fernando Tatis Jr, Jackson Merrill, Dustin Harris, Miguel Andujar, Austin Hays, Ethan Salas, Freddy Fermin, Luis Campusano, Xander Bogaerts, Jake Cronenworth, Ty France, Manny Machado, Gavin Sheets and Jase Bowen. This one was a little tougher as I struggled with the last spot since I see them carrying three catchers as mentioned above. Austin Hays has been hitting lefties well and Miguel Andujar has the veteran experience, even if he’s just coming back from injury. I see both being the right hand platoon for DH as well as a pinch hitter for Salas when a lefty pitcher comes in, especially since the Brewers figure to carry 3-4 relievers from their end of season active roster. So I ended up including both Hays and Andujar over Samad Taylor as a result.
Should be a fun series as the flukey nature of playoff baseball continues so again looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.
Now that the Padres 2026 regular season has ended, some musings:
On Saturday September 05, 2026, the Padres had lost 8 of 11 games (74-68) and were the first team out of the playoffs, 0.5 game back of the Arizona Diamondbacks for the last playoff spot (the 6 seed), 6 games back of the Philadelphia Phillies for the 5 seed and 6.5 games back of the Chicago Cubs for the 4 seed with 20 games left. From the trade deadline at the beginning of August when the Padres were playing well, my hope was the Padres would be able to get to being 4 games up on the Diamondbacks with the last 3 games left of the regular season against them so it didn’t come down to a playoff series before the playoffs to get in. So I would have been happy then just knowing the 6 seed was locked down to play Atlanta (seemed unlikely then that Atlanta would catch the Dodgers for the 2 seed).
Once it got to this point with 20 games left, trying to get to 4 games up seemed pretty daunting so I was just hoping they would continue to have a chance to get into the playoffs. To end the season with 91 victories, going 17-3 in the last games where they ended up with the 4 seed above the Cubs and Phillies was quite impressive. Clinching in LA at Dodger Stadium by winning 2 out of 3 and then having the Cubs and Phillies continue to struggle so all the Padres had to do was win 1 out of the last 3 games against the Diamondbacks for the 4 seed and doing it on the second to last game on Saturday was great and not something I saw coming.
Being the 4 seed to have the home field advantage is big since the Padres play much better at home (51-30 vs 40-41 on the road) and you make the Cubs have to travel from the east coast being they had to play Sunday in Tampa Bay with the nor’easter storming through Boston and the Northeast. This is much better than the Padres having to travel and of course great for me and Padres fans since we get to pack Petco Park.
Seeing the offense play like it’s supposed to in the second half of the season was great. Fernando Tatis Jr has been playing great since he hit his first home run on May 30, Ty France has been a revelation all year and we’re starting to see Jackson Merrill hit more consistently in the second half. As well, guys like Dustin Harris and Samad Taylor have provided a jolt to this offense and really buy in to keeping the line moving with the next batter up. It’s no longer painful to watch the offense as we saw in the first two months where they would scuffle the whole game before hitting a big home run in the 8th or 9th inning.
Ethan Salas is showing why he’s a top prospect though he still is a rookie and will make some mistakes as expected, like trying to do the backdoor throw to first to get Corbin Carroll out yesterday in the 2nd inning that lead to Geraldo Perdomo scoring and tying the game. I’m expecting him to continue to learn and take these lessons to heart especially with the stakes higher in the postseason.
For the Wild Card Series roster, since its only a three game series, I see them carrying 14 position players and 12 pitchers. At the end of the season they had 15 position players and 13 pitchers with the expanded 28 player roster so I see the roster as follows:
Pitchers (12): Michael King, Nick Pivetta, Walker Buehler and Robbie Ray as potential starters (Buehler and Ray for potentially game 3 whether one or piggybacking both), Jason Adam, Yuki Matsui, Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon, David Morgan, Wandy Peralta, Bradgley Rodriguez and then the last one I see as Randy Vasquez. Even though Vasquez pitched Sunday with 6 innings and 68 pitches, I can see him throwing an inning or long relief on Wednesday or Thursday. Maybe Joe Musgrove is an option since it’s a short series so if you don’t use him it doesn’t affect you as much. But I wonder what lane would be good to use him considering he hasn’t pitched in two years, maybe as an opener in game 3?
Position Players (14): Fernando Tatis Jr, Jackson Merrill, Dustin Harris, Samad Taylor, Austin Hays, Ethan Salas, Freddy Fermin, Luis Campusano, Xander Bogaerts, Jake Cronenworth, Ty France, Manny Machado, Gavin Sheets and for the last spot Jase Bowen. Considering the need to cover the outfield late, I see them valuing the defense of Bowen over Sung-Mun Song and his infield defense. Especially with Jake bouncing around the infield lately to have a feel again for all the positions so they can move Jake around like they would Song.
Starting pitching is still the biggest concern for me considering that Casey Mize struggling mightily before going on the IL yesterday, Michael King struggled in his last start against the Dodgers and both him and Buehler can lose it pretty quick and have a blow up inning as we’ve seen several times this season. As well, Nick Pivetta is still coming back from injury (he could be like Musgrove in 2024 and pitching on borrowed time) and Robbie Ray has been more like what you would expect from him with giving up a lot of walks and not getting a lot of strikeouts so it’s always dicey with him out there. We just need the starting pitching to get enough length so we’re not going to the bullpen super early considering how great the bullpen is and how the offense has been playing for the second half of the season. I know the postseason they’ll have a quick hook but getting quality length from the starters will be huge like 2024 where the starters except Dylan Cease gave the team a chance each game.
It’s postseason baseball so it can be flukey and fun so looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.
In my continued quest to visit all the ballparks, we headed down to Tampa Bay and specifically St. Petersburg to see the Padres play the Rays at Tropicana Field, especially after the work they did to repair the roof after Hurricane Milton, which included them doing some other enhancements as well.
The series was a disaster for the Padres who got swept and found ways to blow all three games in excruciating fashion but I’ll focus on the ballpark itself.
Tropicana Field is located about 20 miles from Tampa International Airport and really you have to use a car to get there. The ballpark is located about 1-2 miles away from downtown St. Petersburg, which is a nice downtown area with great waterfront/pier access and plenty of restaurants and bars in the area.
However, next to the ballpark there really isn’t anything but parking lots and some housing and hotels but it’s not really an area to hang around before/after the games. The majority of the hotels are in downtown St. Pete and they offer shuttles to/from Rays games.
We stayed at a hotel only a couple of blocks away from the ballpark, though we did go downtown St. Pete as the city offers the Central Avenue Trolley and Downtown Looper as free options to get around downtown and between downtown and the main train station. We ended up using an Uber to go downtown with how hot and humid it was in at the end of August but those are public transportation options if the weather cooperates or you have some flexibility.
At the time we arrived in Tampa Bay, they announced public funding approval for a new ballpark which would be built in Tampa near the Buccaneers’ football stadium. That’s been the argument against Tropicana Field and being over in St. Pete making it hard to get to for many locals in the Tampa Bay region. I don’t have a good feel since I went straight from the airport over to St. Pete and stayed there the whole time so it wasn’t bad in my experience but I only made that round trip once and during non-rush hour traffic times.
Coming up on Tropicana Field and being that it’s a domed ballpark, it looks pretty nondescript.
Once inside, I didn’t realize at first that they had odd-numbered sections on the third base side and even- numbered sections on the first base side. So it went 101, 103, 105, etc going towards third base and then 102, 104, 106, etc on going towards first base. This is like how Petco Park is but the signs didn’t make it as noticeable.
The ballpark is much more intimate and smaller than I expected, especially since there is only limited seats in the outfield:
And as we started walking towards the third base side, I saw a sign to go down towards the Field level, with stairs to go down and an escalator to go up. My assumption was this was to continue on the current first level of the ballpark I was on (which was behind the lower level 100s seats) but actually the way the ballpark works is once you get to the foul poles, you can continue into a corridor that allows you to walk the concourse in the outfield where you can still see the field.
Otherwise you can go down to the Field level to walk around a lower level in the outfield. Both levels allow access to the seats in the outfield, with the Field level going up stairs and the outfield concourse going down stairs.
The Field level is walking through a tunnel so it reminds me of really old stadiums where you’re walking underground, complete with stairs to get to seats.
They do try to brighten up the Field level with some nice exhibits along the way:
And once you get to center field, you reach Gate 1 which has a nice looking grand entrance into the ballpark:
This entrance is the nicest looking entrance in the ballpark as the other entrances tend to be just regular entrances like you would see entering a building.
On the upper outfield concourse, it is nice to be able to walk around and see the field and in this case be able to literally walk in front of their video board when you walk in right field. Only in the outfield can you see the field as behind home plate and in the upper level its all walking through tunnels to get to seats as those concourses are behind the stands with no view of the field.
In left field they have ADA seats and general admission seats while the seats in right field are standing room only (SRO) with drink rails which is the only place in the ballpark that has SRO options.
They do have the Budweiser Porch straight away in center field which is a nice social area to get food and drink and hang out.
As well, next to the Budweiser Porch is the Rays Touch Tank with stingrays swimming in a 10,000 gallon tank that kids can touch. I thought this was a nice attraction considering the team name and something for kids to do.
Once we sat down for the game, the biggest thing I noticed is how easy it is to lose the ball in the white roof. Besides the quirks with the ball hitting the catwalks, once a ball is hit into the air, it was extremely easy to lose where the ball went. I know it wasn’t just me as I heard a Rays fan behind me tell his friend “once the ball goes above the net, I always lose the ball with the white backdrop.”
I couldn’t imagine having to deal with this all season as it makes the game much less enjoyable when it’s that difficult to track the ball. Other than losing the ball, since the ballpark is pretty small, the views of the seats are actually pretty good and it doesn’t feel large or far away like going to some other ballparks.
Another thing is this ballpark still has both bulllpens on the field down the foul line, something you’re seeing less and less of nowadays in baseball.
They do have a few national brands of food but most of the food is locally inspired. They do have a food hall on both sides of the infield, one at 119 on the third base side and one at 120 on the first base that are both carbon copies of each other:
For food, I found the options to be decent but more expensive than I expected. My souvenir soda (which included free refills) was $18.50. There aren’t many food options outside around the ballpark unless you want to start downtown before you get here but it isn’t exactly walking distance. So you don’t have the outside food and drink options the way you have at the many ballparks that are in downtown or have ballpark villages right outside/near the ballpark.
The video board in right field isn’t large compared to other ballparks but it is big enough considering how small the ballpark is. They do have limited ribbon boards compared to other ballparks, but they do show enough information including showing pitching information (including pitch break) and cycling through out of town scores.
In between innings they do a variety of things pretty regularly throughout the game including the t-shirt toss, trivia games, mascot race and different cams like the SpongeBob look a like cam. So they do try to keep the fans entertained throughout the entire game versus some places where all they do is play music,
I did find it funny and kinda cool that the Rays jumped on the Tarps Off trend and have a section in left field called the Tarps Off Territory.
Overall, Tropicana Field was what I expected based on what others have said about it. It’s in the lower tier of ballparks when you consider everything (location, what it offers, what’s around it, etc) and why I can see the Rays have wanted a new ballpark for some time. I was surprised at how small it felt inside there as it does have an intimate feel to it. But other than that, it is pretty barebones so I’ll be looking forward to returning to Tampa when the new ballpark opens.
Continuing on the quest to see all 30 ballparks, we made a trip to Cleveland to see the Padres play the Guardians at Progressive Field.
Located at the south part of downtown Cleveland, Progressive Field is right next to Rocket Arena (where the Cavaliers play) and is accessible by rail (train) from the airport on the Red Line. You get off at the Tower City station and then it’s about a 1/2 mile to the ballpark. The ride is close to 30 minutes from the airport so we ended up taking an Uber which was only a 15-minute ride since we arrived on Friday later afternoon and wanted some time to explore the ballpark.
The ballpark has been around since 1994 and was the first wave of new ballparks (with Baltimore’s Oriole Park) and they’ve done a nice job of maintaining and continually renovating it including recent renovations finished before the 2025 season. The capacity has been reduced from a peak of 45,569 in 2010 to the current capacity of 34,830 which can have higher attendance numbers when you include the SRO tickets they sell.
Walking around the ballpark in the infield, at first I only noticed the enclosed concourse that’s blocked by the different stands and club areas from seeing the field but then I realized that there’s a parallel walkway right in front of the stands/clubs as well.
For example, in this picture below where I was near the right field foul pole going towards home plate, you can see the two walkways, the one on the right that has a view of the field and the one on the far left that’s behind the stands:
Here is what it looks like walking the inner concourse (the one you go to on the left from the picture above):
And what it looks like walking on the right one that has a view of the field:
And another example where you can see the two parallel walkways (with a sweet Cleveland mural and the Guardians from the Hope Memorial Bridge):
First time I’ve seen this where you had both walkways, which helps to avoid having too much traffic on the concourse. The one negative is there really isn’t standing room only in the infield as they draw yellow and blue lines so people know where they can walk and to keep moving:
The yellow line is behind the seats, generally behind accessible seating, while the blue line is where you can line up for the stands. Talking to one of the ushers near 1st base, he said you can stand behind the blue line for standing room only (SRO) but this sign says otherwise:
And during the game I didn’t really see people standing in the infield except for waiting in line to get food and drink.
So there really isn’t standing room areas in the infield, but down near the foul poles and in the outfield on multiple levels, there are an abundance of places to stand with drink rails. From going down to left field to center field behind the bullpens to right field and then going up to the Terrace Garden and Terrace Hall as well as right field on the top 400/500 level, you can usually find a spot to stand.
While it’s missing the infield SRO, it’s still nice there are a lot of options down near the foul poles and in the outfield on multiple levels and I really like how they’ve built out many group and social areas like the Right Field District. This combined with $1 hot dogs and $2 Miller Lite beer cans pregame specials in the Right Field District for the Friday and Saturday night games I went to and it creates a great atmosphere and tons of energy at the ballpark. They’ve really made Guardians games a place to go which is a great recipe for big crowds regardless of how the team may be doing.
In terms of the outfield seating, left field underneath the massive wide videoboard is still bench seating and you walk underneath the bleachers with no view of the field here. Center field to right field is wide open with views of the field along with the aforementioned SRO.
As well, in center field is Heritage Park, honoring past Cleveland greats. It’s a really nice touch to see all the different players throughout Cleveland’s history and definitely worth going through to look around. Because it is in center field right next to the Right Field District, you do tend to get a lot of people hanging out in this area as part of the pregame activities (the $1 hot dogs and $2 beers previously mentioned).
The SRO right behind the bullpens in center field is nice and gets you really close to the bullpens as you’re literally on top of the visitors bullpen which is stacked right behind the home bullpen. There is the Lower Reserved Bullpen sections right in front of the bullpens, four small sections with 2-3 rows of padded seats that feel kinda private since the ushers check your seats and give you a wristband to go in and out of the sections.
In right field near section 113 there’s the Field View Bullpen, which allows you to go down stairs to where the visitors bullpen used to be (before they moved it to the aforementioend stacked level in center field as part of renovations before the 2015 season). There’s a line for it and they allow 25 people to watch a full inning there before switching out for the next 25 lined up. It’s definitely a nice touch and a cool thing to check.
One benefit I like is they do have a re-entry policy at Progressive Field where they will scan your ticket so you can come back in, similar to Petco Park. The norm around the league tends to be to not allow re-enter so places this I find very useful, especially if you’re staying nearby like we were in a hotel only a block away.
One thing I didn’t notice until reading up on the ballpark more before going on Saturday is the Family Deck section in right field on the 300 level that you take an escalator to from the ground (100) level. This area has a good number things for kids to do including a small batting cage, playground, a home plate to 1st base timed sprint, pitching cage as well as tables and SRO drink rails. It’s definitely a good area for the kids to play. But being on the second level I can see this as a place that’s easily missed (I didn’t notice it all at the first game we went to) unless you know about it or do the exploring that I did.
While the ballpark does have downtown Cleveland in the background, the skyline isn’t that populated since there aren’t as many tall buildings in the area. I went up to the upper level briefly but wasn’t able to really see too far into downtown or Lake Erie. So it doesn’t have the skyline of some of the other downtown ballparks.
The massive wide video board and the accompanying ribbon boards around the ballpark provide good stats and good clear replays. For someone like me that cares about the ballpark technology, these video screens are top-notch and provide good information and they repeat the information throughout the ribbon boards (i.e. the counts and pitch information like pitch type, horizontal break and vertical break show on ribbon boards in right field, 1st base and 3rd base) so it makes it easy to find and see from most places in the ballpark. For the first game, we sat behind home plate and the second game in the outfield and it was easy to keep up to date in either sport. The one thing is they only show out-of-town scores on the ribbon underneath the big video board and only in between innings. Left field would be a place I’d avoid since besides bench seating, there isn’t another video board in the ballpark so you wouldn’t be able to see the videos and also the ribbon board underneath with the out-of-town scores.
In terms of the seating, the views are good throughout the ballpark as nothing felt far as I tried different vantage points. For the most part, the seats are slanted towards home plate, though there are weird quirks, such as section 519 where the seats are angled in a weird way (I’m surprised they didn’t remove these seats as part of the renovations).
For food, they do have local options like Happy Dog, Momocho, Barrio and Perry’s Ice Cream along with ballpark fare. The Slider Dog from Happy Dog with pimento mac and cheese, crumbled bacon, and froot loops was interesting to try but wasn’t the best exotic hot dog I’ve tried. Getting a hot dog and putting ball park mustard on it is definitely something I would do as I found the mustard to have a good flavor to it. After you get your hot dog from a stand, go to the nearby condiments stand and you’ll find the mustard there with ketchup, regular mustard, napkins and utensils.
Otherwise the rest of the food was decent but the surrounding area has good food options, including East 4th Street, which has many restaurants and bars. The area around the ballpark is somewhere you can hang out before a game when coming downtown with a variety of food and drink options and the type of scenes you’re seeing other ballparks try to replicate but in that they own all the surrounding entertainment (like in Atlanta with the Battery). I prefer areas like this in downtown Cleveland (and similarly in downtown San Diego with the Gaslamp Quarter) where it’s more organic versus something the team is controlling. And my preference would be to go eat at one of these areas before the game versus eating at the ballpark.
During the game, they try to keep the crowd involved with things between innings like the flex cam, trivia and other contests. It’s not every inning but pretty often so it keeps the crowd involved. The biggest thing was the Hot Dog Derby race, their version of the mascot race on the field with hot dog condiments that the crowd got really excited for. They do “Get Loud” and “2 Strikes” on the board to get the crowd going in key moments of the game as well. One interesting thing is they do the cap shuffle before the game.
Overall, Progressive Field is a nice ballpark and I really like how they’ve continued to renovate it to make it a place to go to. Even though the ballpark is now 32 years old, it doesn’t feel or look old as they’ve done a great job maintaining it. In terms of amenities they’ve done everything to make it the place to go to for everyone, whether its for those who want to go with groups or social areas, bring their kids, the corporate (with the suites and club areas) or those who there to just watch the game since the capacity has been made intimate with most seats having good sightlines.
Progressive Field is how I hope other teams want to maintain their ballparks to keep them modern and places people want to continue going to, versus deferring maintenance and expecting a new ballpark/stadium to be built as you’ve seen with other teams and other sports leagues. It’s definitely a place I would recommend visiting.
With the trade deadline passing yesterday, some musings on the moves the Padres made:
The trade for Robbie Ray and Casey Mize (with utility man Gage Workman also part of the Mize trade) adds starting pitching that the team desperately needs. It was fun seeing the “pitching chaos” the past couple of weeks with previous starting pitchers like Griffin Canning, Randy Vasquez, JP Sears and German Marquez doing different bulk inning roles throughout the game (Marquez pitching a 5 inning save was something that hadn’t been done in franchise history since the first season in 1969). However, you can’t really expect that to continue for 2 months especially when you’re banking on Michael King and Walker Buehler as the two true “starters” since both have been liable to big blowup innings this year that require the bullpen to come in and cover some innings.
This is even more so needed with how uncertain it is with Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta coming back (especially after Pivetta left his rehab start early today with elbow tightness). I don’t think you can fully count on either considering Musgrove has been out for nearly 2 years and Pivetta is dealing with a tricky elbow issue so I would consider anything you get out of them a bonus. So adding two legit starting pitchers with the Padres bullpen gives them a good pitching staff for the rest of the season.
I do think the Padres gave up a little too much in terms of giving up Joniel Hernandez and Kash Mayfield as part of the trades for Ray and Mize. Mayfield since he’s the Padres #2 prospect (and best pitching prospect) and Hernandez because he’s a 17-year-old shortstop they just signed as the top prospect for $1.4 million in their international signing period earlier this year. I get that Mayfield’s numbers haven’t been great this year and Hernandez is like a lottery ticket since he’s still young and far away but considering how barren the Padres farm system is and that they’re only getting these guys for rentals, I would hope the Padres can start getting more young guys through the system (like Jackson Merrill) to continually help each year and balance out the Padres bloated payroll. I don’t think it’s realistic even with the impending sale to all of a sudden expect the Padres to spend substantially more considering they have a top ten payroll in both CBT and actual cash spent and will be paying the tax this year. Would be great to get rid of some of these big contracts that aren’t worth what they’re getting paid but no one will take on those deals without prospects or the Padres eating a large portion of the contract which then leads us back to the same problem. A more balanced team would help the Padres from being so top-heavy and dependent on these highly paid players as we saw them struggle early this year and most of last year.
The offense has been better since the beginning of June and it still goes back to the offense will go based on how the star players go and what I mentioned with being so top-heavy. It is how the team is constructed so can’t do anything about this season. We saw last year with the trade deadline additions of Ryan O’Hearn, Ramon Laureano and Freddy Fermin, that the offense still struggled towards the end of the year and into the NL Wild Card series against the Cubs as the top of the lineup (Fernando Tatis Jr, Luis Arraez and Manny Machado) struggled badly. So while it would have been nice to add another bat, the offense will really go based on how the current star batters go, like we saw tonight. I don’t remember the last time Tatis, Machado, Merrill and Xander Bogaerts all got hits in the 1st inning to drive in three runs, especially against a pitcher like Eduardo Rodriguez who has been having a great season (even if the Padres hit well against him last year).
With the Padres playing in Kansas City right after the All Star Break, now was a good time to check out Kauffman Stadium and try some of the famous KC BBQ.
Kauffman Stadium is located about 10 miles from downtown KC, situated right next to Arrowhead Stadium, with both surrounded by large parking lots and right next to a couple of highways.
So there really isn’t anything nearby in the area and you really have to get here by car. There are a few hotels nearby (1-2 miles away) but most people recommend staying downtown and then driving/ubering to the game. Even places like Gates BBQ or Dixon’s Chili that are popular spots to eat prior to the game are a mile or two away that you will need to drive to.
The stadium opened in 1973 so it has the cookie-cutter design from the 1960s and 1970s but they have done a good job of maintaining and renovating it over the years.
Walking around the ballpark on the Plaza level, you are able to see the field unlike some other older stadiums where the concourse is closed off from the field.
Not surprisingly being an older stadium, the concourse has an overhang (for holding the seating sections above the 100s/200s) so it can feel enclosed and when it’s a large crowd, get a little cramped walking around.
Most of the food stands were locally inspired and do they have a solid craft beer selection but I didn’t notice too many local restaurants other than Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que, which I highly recommend trying, especially if you can go to one of their restaurant locations. The BBQ at Joe’s lives up to the hype and the wait; we went to the original gas station location and even though we got there at 8pm on a weeknight, the line was still out the door and ended up being a 45-minute wait but the BBQ was top-notch.
The rest of the food is decent but not great, which goes with what I saw looking online and at the Royals reddit. Many people recommend eating elsewhere like the many places around downtown before coming here (since you have to drive here in any case) and I agree with them.
One interesting thing is they only have standing room only around the foul poles into the outfield:
This could be because of the concourse having an overhang in the infield and so they can have all the different concession stands, whereas it opens up to be more wide open (with no overhang) at the foul poles.
They do a great job honoring the Royals history here as the Hall of Fame in the outfield is a pretty good size and has a lot of information on Kansas City’s baseball history and its connection to Cooperstown. It’s free to enter once you get in the ballpark so definitely recommend stopping by for a visit.
As well, the statues line the outfield right above the fountains:
Speaking of the fountains, since Kansas City is known as the City of Fountains, it is one of the signature touches of the ballpark (along with the crown-shaped big videoboard known as CrownVision) and it is a nice touch. They usually have the fountains shooting up water pregame, between innings and during moments of the game.
Also in the outfield is a pretty large kids area that includes a playground, pitching mound, batting cage, a miniature field (similar to what they have at Petco Park) as well as a kids team store. They do a great job of keeping the kids entertained here, more so than any other ballpark I’ve been to with Atlanta being another one that’s comparable.
In terms of views, the views are pretty good at different places and seats throughout the ballpark as it doesn’t feel too far away or too high and you can get a good view of the action on the field.
The only negative is being an older ballpark, the seats are facing straight forward versus angled towards home plate. So for example, where we sat behind the photo well next to the visitor’s dugout on the third base side, I had to angle myself to the right to face home plate, which wasn’t too bad since the seat next to me was empty.
I do like that the seats are labeled for long-time season ticket holders:
During the game, they do try to have consistent in-game entertainment between innings, things like the cap shuffle, flex cam, kiss cam and their hot dog derby, which is their version of the big heads racing on the field. But maybe because of the size of the crowd on a Friday night (close to 26K), people didn’t really get into these bits on a consistent basis. Like the hot dog derby, the Salute to Service, kiss cam and when they showed the guys in the upper level doing “Tarps Off” did you hear the crowd get into it. For the other bits, if you weren’t looking at the screen you wouldn’t have even noticed them since they don’t say too much about many of them (i.e. they don’t have a DJ intro the bit like other ballparks) and the crowd didn’t see to be paying attention to them.
They do display the advanced pitching and hitting stats on the LED ribbon board in right field and the big videoboard known as “CrownVison” contains all the stats you normally expect to see.
Because the video board is so tall (and was upgraded with newer technology in 2021), you can see things pretty clearly on the video board. Even though most ballparks now are going for a wider screen (like how your TV is wide), the CrownVision board with a taller height worked pretty well to display information and replays. And I like that it gives a distinct look to it matching the Royals and their crown theme.
Overall, the Royals have done a good job maintaining Kauffman Stadium for a ballpark built in the 1970s. It is limited because of the structure/design and location when compared to modern ballparks built in the 2000s and doesn’t have the old-time charm of the classic ballparks like Wrigley or Fenway. But overall, it does hold up better than some of the other older ballparks like Angel Stadium and even some of the 1990s ballparks like Chase Field, Rate Field and Tropicana Field. I have it right in the middle tier of ballparks so it’s worth a visit to see as well as try the great KC BBQ.
With the unofficial first half ending now that it’s the all star break, some musings on the 2026 season.
After a 4-3 homestand, the Padres finished at .500 (48-48) and 3.5 games back of the last wild card spot. They are in wild card contention with eight teams currently in contention for the three spots (Cubs, Phillies, Marlins, Cardinals, Pirates, Diamondbacks, Padres and Nationals):
The Padres already lost the season series to the Cubs, Phillies and Cardinals, haven’t played the Marlins yet, are tied with the Diamondbacks (3-3), lead the Pirates (2-1) and are losing to the Nationals (1-2). Miami is coming up on the 10-game road trip after the all star break so that will be a huge series for both teams.
But regardless, considering they lost three season series to other teams in the hunt already, it’s a tough climb to not only catch the teams in front but possibly have to finish in front of them because of losing the season series tiebreaker with these teams.
Realistically, AJ Preller won’t want to sell unless the team is completely out of it. If you think about the recent seasons where the team was in similar or worse situations at the trade deadline like the ill-fated 2015 season (“rockstar GM”, 50-53 and 6.5 games out of the wild card), 2021 (when the team had the epic second half collapse and they were 61-45 and leading the wild card by 5.5 games) or 2023 (Juan Soto, Xander Bogaerts and the huge expectations, the team was 52-55 at the trade deadline and 5 games out of the wild card), AJ still hung on to players on expiring contracts even though it made more sense to trade them.
Guys like Justin Upton and Ian Kennedy in 2015 and Josh Hader and Blake Snell in 2023 could have been traded for some prospects since those teams were flawed and were unlikely to make a playoff push (and still thinking they could make a playoff push was the main reason he gave as to why he didn’t trade them). 2021 was understandable since the Padres were in a playoff position comfortably, though some will argue that they should have added reinforcements then considering all the injuries that ended up happening to the starting pitching.
In 2016 with the Padres starting their rebuild (the whole thing about doing the rebuild now so the 2020s could be the decade of the Padres), they did start trading guys like James Shields and Matt Kemp.
While Manny Machado (last 30 games slashing .279/.372/.586 with 8 HR and 23 RBI) and Fernando Tatis Jr (last 30 games at .274/.326/.452 with 4 HR and 16 RBI) are hitting much better recently and the offense is starting to show life, the starting pitching still remains a huge question mark.
Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta remain on the Injured List (IL), both targeting August returns but hard to guarantee either comes back then and even if they do, what they’ll look like considering how long they’ve been out. Look at Michael King and when he came back late last season and Musgrove will have been out 22 months since he last pitched in October 2024.
At the same time, Walker Buehler in three starts in July has a 16.36 ERA in 11 innings pitched, getting pulled after two innings in his last start yesterday July 11, Randy Vasquez and Lucas Giolito were both struggling when they went on the IL and the Padres are using JP Sears, Griffin Canning, German Marquez and even Matt Waldron with extreme care, not letting them go through the lineup a third time, which is understandable considering how much better hitters are a third time through.
But starting pitching is hanging on barely and it’s not like you can trade for 2-3 starters to pair with Michael King and hopefully Pivetta and Musgrove come back.
So that screams sell to me, but selling guys with value who will be free agents after the season like Adrian Morejon (as much as it pains me to do it but I feel he’ll get a big contract in the offseason and not sure the Padres will be able to or want to pay what he’s looking for and being a closer elsewhere despite how much he likes it here), Ty France, Jason Adam (assuming he gets back healthy), Miguel Andujar and even Michael King since his contract contains an opt out after each year. Even guys like Wandy Peralta and Yuki Matsui considering they have opt outs and if teams would be willing to take them on since everyone always needs more pitching and relief pitching costs teams less to trade for.
But I would hang on to Mason Miller considering you have three years of control after this season unless some team is really willing to blow you away with their trade offer. I do get the Padres are more reliant than other teams on box office draw with their limited TV contract and Miller has become someone the fans look to see. So considering they won’t get what they gave up for him last year trading Leo De Vries (who continues to impress as the #2 overall prospect in baseball), it would definitely affect the team continuing to draw if they trade him so quickly.
Again I would get creative and see what teams are interested in unless the team goes on some hot run by this year’s trading deadline of August 3, similar to what they did in 2024 when they went 43-20 after the all star break. Because otherwise this team will end up where you hold onto parts, don’t make the playoffs and then just continue to have a high payroll and barren farm system. Then we end up with a similar season next year as we did this year, assuming the season happens with the impending lockout. At some point, it just seems like the team needs to do a reset as can reasonably be done, considering the core players you have and their contracts that would make it hard to do a complete rebuild and the fan uproar it would cause.
After this week’s homestand against the Braves and Dodgers, some musings:
After the 4-5 road trip, coming home to start a 20 game in 21 day stretch with the first 13 against teams currently in the playoff picture (the Braves, Dodgers, Cubs and Dodgers again), you would have been happy with a 4-2 start against the Braves and Dodgers. Of course, you wouldn’t have thought it would be a sweep of the Braves and losing another series at home 1-2 against the Dodgers.
The Dodgers continue to dominate the Padres and the two losses continue to show the issues this year’s team is having. The starting pitching isn’t getting any length and it seems to be an inning where it just gets away from while the offense can’t seem to get the big hit, a stark contrast to the Dodgers who seem to get the big hits when they need them.
There was the 9 run sixth inning where Randy Vasquez gave up 7 (4 earned) of the runs in the inning in yesterday’s game. This was after the Padres started with Kyle Hart as an opener for two innings, so Vasquez couldn’t even make it through four full innings.
Then in the bottom of the 7th inning, when the Padres had the bases loaded with one out, down 10-3 with Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado up to make things interesting, neither came through with Merrill striking out while Machado grounded into a force out. Whereas in the 9 run sixth inning, the Dodgers kept getting hits and moving the line.
Then in today’s game, in the 5th inning, Michael King started by walking the #8 hitter Freeland, getting an out on a sacrifice bunt that ended up being a pop up, walking Ohtani, hitting Pages, walking Freeman to score a run (which should have been strike 3 on ball 4 that the Padres should have challenged since they had both challenges left) and then Betts hitting a two run double to make it 4-1.
Meanwhile, in the bottom of the 8th, the Padres had runners on 1st and 2nd with one out and on the first pitch Miguel Andujar grounds into an inning-ending double play. Bottom of the 9th with a runner on 1st and 1 out, Fernando Tatis Jr grounded into a game-ending double play.
Even if Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta come back, I’m not sure this assortment of starting pitching the Padres have will be able to continue to patch work through enough innings to not overburden the elite bullpen. But what can you realistically get on the trade market by trading what’s left of the farm system? I get AJ is always able to trade every year but does it really make sense to keep doing this and not develop some homegrown players that can come up to help the team?
As far as the hitting, Tatis has been hitting more consistently since the beginning of June and Machado has been hitting better the past 10 days. Even if you trade for a decent hitter (and considering you want to trade for starting pitching, how much can you really offer?), can they really make that much of an impact? All the hitters we’ve traded over the past five years from pick-ups like Adam Frazier, Brandon Drury, Ryan O’Hearn, Ramon Laureano, Josh Bell and even Juan Soto have all struggled here the rest of the season after their trades. These guys all have added length to the lineup but we’d all like to see moves that jumpstart the offense the way we saw with Seattle last year when they added Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor. But even in 2022, with Soto, Bell and Drury added, the team only went 29-27 down the stretch and we were still having the same complaints about the offense. So you pretty much need the current team to start hitting and anyone you would add is to complement it.
Oriole Park at Camden Yards has been on my list to visit since it’s credited with starting the retro look craze and building distinct ballparks as we got away from the cookie-cutter multi-purpose stadium phase.
The ballpark is located to the west of the Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore. We took the MTA Light RailLink from the BWI airport which is $2 one way per person and takes about 30 minutes to the Camden or Convention Center stations, which are both a block away from an entrance to the ballpark.
I’ve read online how people say the Light RailLink isn’t the best since it can have disruptions or delays often and Uber is cheap to the ballpark (I checked and it was about $20 on a Thursday around 2:30pm) but since we had some time, we figured we’d try it out. The ride was pretty smooth and easy and I would recommend it for those traveling light. That’s because it’s a 10-15 minute walk to the station on the bottom level of the airport and there isn’t room to store your luggage on the Light RailLink. We just held our carry-on suitcases in front of us and it wasn’t busy but I can see that being more difficult if you have large suitcases.
The ballpark is about half a mile north of the Baltimore Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium. Directly around the area isn’t much except a small area right in front with Pickles Pub (more on that later) so you have to go about half a mile to get to the Inner Harbor and/or the rest of downtown to find things to do. Otherwise, the area right around the ballpark itself is pretty quiet.
Incorporating the B&O Warehouse into the right field backdrop is a great touch. It gives the stadium skyline a nice look as otherwise you wouldn’t see much beyond the outfield:
They have gates on both ends of the warehouse on Eutaw Street to enter, with Gate H at the north end of Eutaw Street featuring the Orioles’ retired numbers outside as well as a statue of Babe Ruth. I didn’t know Babe Ruth was born in Baltimore until researching what to do in the city and seeing that the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum is a couple of blocks away. The museum is definitely worth a visit if you’re a baseball nut to see some of the Bambino’s artifacts.
Once we entered and walked around on the field level, I noticed the concourse was pretty wide, making it easy to walk around.
The negative is when you go into the part with an overhang (under the club level and upper deck seating so basically everywhere except most of the outfield), you don’t have a view of the field as you walk around and/or get food and beverages. To access the seats, you go through tunnels in between the stands such as this:
As a result, you don’t have the standing room areas behind the seating sections in the infield or down the line that many of the new ballparks have. They do have standing room only in the outfield, which includes left field above the bullpens, right field right next to the foul pole and you can stand behind two rows of reserved seating in the Coors Light Roof Deck above the batter’s eye:
The one interesting thing is I tried to take the escalator to the upper deck level (not the club level) to walk around and check it out but the ushers at the escalator wouldn’t let me go up there unless I had a ticket for those sections (and my ticket was in the field level). I know some ballparks restrict areas based on tickets (like the Bleachers at Wrigley Field) so Oriole Park is one of those. They actually didn’t check tickets in the actual sections as they had an usher at each section and when I walked in they just asked me if I knew where to find my seats (without looking at my tickets), most likely because I had Padres gear on so they assumed I wasn’t local.
Food-wise, the Orioles have locally known restaurants like Stuggy’s and Attman’s Deli as well as stands that were inspired by local cuisine and became fan favorites like Boog’s BBQ (a BBQ stand named after former Orioles All-Star first baseman Boog Powell). I will commend the Orioles in that they have self-serve soda stations all over the ballpark so if you get a souvenir cup (which is the only fountain soda option though some stands sell soda by the 20-ounce bottle), you can use it over and over again.
The food is decent but it may be better to eat outside around the area or even right in front of the ballpark at Pickles Pub, which along with the restaurants next door have a nice setup to eat before and after the game.
The Orioles also do a good job of capturing their history with various displays and statues around the ballpark, including having former players sign autographs for free:
In terms of the views around the outfield (since that’s really the only place you can go that is standing room only), the views themselves are pretty good as nothing feels too far away.
Once you sit down in your seats, the seats themselves are pretty small in width and the rows are extremely tight. We sat in section 44 row 8 which is four sections over from directly behind home plate and a couple of sections before you get to the sections behind the visitors dugout on the 3rd base side. So I would expect these seats to be the typical size of seats in the ballpark.
I’m not sure if the above pictures really capture how small the seats are or how tight the rows are. We were sitting next to a couple of season ticket holders who were normal-sized men and they decided to move to the row behind us as they said it would allow us all to have some space to breathe (and the row behind us had four open seats). As well, for the second game we went to, the mom sitting next to me mentioned to her young kids she didn’t want to get up until they had to go since we were “packed in like sardines”.
The seats are angled straight ahead in each section so if you are sitting down the line past 1st or 3rd base, you’ll be angled towards 2nd base and you’ll have to turn your head to face home plate. It does become difficult to watch a game in your seat this way and something newer ballparks have recognized and why they angled their seats towards home plate.
For 2026, the Orioles installed a new video board along with new ribbon boards and a sound system that puts it in line with other ballparks. For people like me who like the tech in ballparks, this does make it a more enjoyable experience and I found the technology to make it a good ballpark experience.
One minor nitpick is they do jam pack the video board with a lot of information, which made it hard to find all the information right away. In the first inning, I couldn’t find the pitcher’s total pitch count until I really looked for it and actually a person next to me commented the same thing a few innings later which I then pointed him to where it was.
In terms of in-game entertainment, they do things like their version of the hat shuffle (which is a crab shuffle that makes sense given its Baltimore), a hot dog race (similar to the big head races at other ballparks), the lookalike cam, t-shirt toss and scoreboard surprises. They don’t do things every half inning like they do at Petco as some innings they’re just playing music.
Overall Oriole Park is definitely a ballpark to visit and one I enjoyed visiting. Though it has some quirks and issues as mentioned above like the seats, no field view as you walked around the concourse, a decent (but not great) food selection and not as much directly around the ballpark, it’s still a great ballpark and one of the better ones out there. Not to mention it started the whole renaissance we’re in now with building great ballparks.
I’ll leave with this new skyline as the sun started setting:
