{"id":117081,"date":"2026-03-29T17:27:59","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=117081"},"modified":"2026-03-29T17:27:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:27:59","slug":"as-padres-drop-opening-weekend-laureano-provides-encouraging-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/03\/29\/as-padres-drop-opening-weekend-laureano-provides-encouraging-offense\/","title":{"rendered":"As Padres Drop Opening Weekend, Laureano Provides Encouraging Offense"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres have been off to an interesting start this season. After dropping the first series of 2026 to the Detroit Tigers, 1-2, the Friar Faithful are cautiously optimistic after their first win Saturday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

But one thing\u2019s for certain thus far:<\/span> Ram\u00f3n Laureano<\/span><\/a> is raking.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Steady (But Uninspiring) Career<\/h2>\n

Over the years, Laureano has developed a reputation as a journeyman, playing for five teams (Athletics, Cleveland Guardians, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, and Padres) across his nine years of MLB service time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s always been a relatively decent bat, only having a below-average wRC+ in two seasons (2022-23). But, before 2025, he had yet to return to the heights of his rookie year with Oakland (.288\/.340\/.521 slash line with 24 home runs).<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p><\/p>\n

Last season, he returned to that level, equaling his home run total and putting together a .281\/.342\/.512 slash line. He was an anchor for the Orioles\u2019 outfield before<\/span> being traded to the Padres at the \u201825 Deadline<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once with San Diego, he hit well. He belted nine homers across 50 games with the Brown and Gold, giving him an .812 OPS with the club.<\/span><\/p>\n

But could that production continue? It had never been consistent before, so what was to say it could stay now?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Hot Start Against Detroit<\/h2>\n

Laureano has done a fantastic job of putting those worries to bed thus far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Across the first three games of the season, he\u2019s had five hits\u2013including a 3-for-4 performance last night as well as the first Padres\u2019 home run of 2026 on Opening Day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That performance has given him a .417 batting average and a ridiculous 1.167 OPS. That will almost certainly not continue to be the case over a full season, but it\u2019s encouraging to see.<\/span><\/p>\n

Filling Out the Lineup<\/h2>\n

This is a San Diego offense that has a great deal of question marks but can be incredibly potent when it wants to.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s a good reminder for the Friar Faithful that, this time last year, left field was manned by <\/span>Jason Heyward<\/span><\/a>. He struggled to produce and ended his time in San Diego with a .176 batting average.<\/span><\/p>\n

Laureano\u2019s emergence as a hitter fills out an outfield that could be the best in all of MLB. With<\/span> Jackson Merrill<\/span><\/a> in center and franchise star<\/span> Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/span><\/a> in right field, Laureano fills out the group well. Thus far he\u2019s actually produced the most of the three.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If he can continue this level of production even somewhat (sitting close to .300 and slugging 20-plus homers), the Padres will have to move him up in the lineup. He\u2019s thus far batted no higher than sixth in the Friars\u2019 batting order.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether he can do that or not will be seen over the course of the season (it\u2019s far too early to say that Laureano can keep up this Aaron Judge<\/a>-type pace), but it\u2019s an inspiring footnote in a difficult\u2013but exciting\u2013Opening Weekend for San Diego fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: David Frerker-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres have been off to an interesting start this season. After dropping the first series of 2026 to the Detroit Tigers, 1-2, the Friar Faithful are cautiously optimistic after their first win Saturday night. But one thing\u2019s for certain thus far: Ram\u00f3n Laureano is raking. A Steady (But Uninspiring) Career Over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5784,"featured_media":117097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1071,35],"tags":[501,1625,28952,28951,2501],"class_list":["post-117081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-padres","category-mlb","category-news","tag-aaron-judge","tag-fernando-tatis-jr","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-jason-heyward","tag-ramon-laureano"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5784"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117081"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117104,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117081\/revisions\/117104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}