{"id":121722,"date":"2026-05-12T16:58:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=121722"},"modified":"2026-05-12T17:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:26:12","slug":"san-diego-padres-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/12\/san-diego-padres-offense\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Middling Offense Doesn\u2019t Match Their Exceptional Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres have an historically bad offense. It’s not new, either. They’ve struggled to have a consistent offense for several years, yet have remained in contention in spite of that. The club has made the postseason in four of the last six seasons, and they’re coming off back-to-back 90-plus win seasons.<\/p>\n

Last season, the Friars exited the postseason by failing to score more than three runs in any of their Wild Card Series games against the Chicago Cubs. In 2024, they blew a 2-1 series lead to the rival Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series. That was due to the Padres’ failure to score over 24 consecutive innings, allowing the Dodgers to take the series<\/a> in game five.<\/p>\n

San Diego is still finding ways to win baseball games. How they’re doing that has been anyone’s guess. Yet it seems to be a combination of factors that’s allowed the Friars to stay in ball games — and the hunt for the Commissioner’s Trophy.<\/p>\n

A Historic Padres Offense … For All the Wrong Reasons<\/h2>\n

The Padres have been ridiculously bad offensively. It’s almost unbelievable. They rank 28th in MLB in team batting average (.223), on-base percentage (.297), and OPS (.667). The club is 24th in slugging percentage (.370), thanks in part to ranking 20th in home runs with 39 entering play on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Yet, somehow, the Padres have won 24 games through their first 40 of the season. They’re now in first place in the NL West, a half-game ahead of the Dodgers after LA’s loss to the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night. There’s plenty of evidence to make the case that San Diego could win the division<\/a> by the end of the season, but their offense will have to pick it up if they hope to do so.<\/p>\n

The Superstars Have Been Anything But<\/h2>\n

Manny Machado<\/a>, Jackson Merrill,<\/a> and Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/a> have not looked good this year. Each of them has been superb defensively, like always, but their bats have been ice-cold. Merrill has looked encouraging lately, but the other two have had rough starts to the year. Machado is batting .191, and Tatis is still without a home run this season.<\/p>\n

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That hasn’t stopped the Friars. Manager Craig Stammen has guided the club well<\/a> despite a difficult stretch currently. Their role players have been fantastic<\/a>, with players like Miguel Andujar<\/a>, Luis Campusano,<\/a> and Ty France<\/a> playing spectacularly off the bench. But if the Padres hope to keep their first-place standing, they’ll need their stars to start acting like it.<\/p>\n

The best player has been shortstop Xander Bogaerts<\/a>. He’s batting .268\/.342\/.437 with a .779 OPS. He leads the Friars in home runs with seven. Across all qualified hitters in Major League Baseball, Bogaerts ranks 58th in slugging percentage, 62nd in batting average and OPS, and 74th in on-base percentage. His emergence as the Padres’ most consistent hitter has been a wonderful development for the club. If Bogaerts can continue to produce, it would help improve fan sentiment toward his expensive contract.<\/p>\n

\"San
May 6, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; San Diego Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts (2) hits a two run home run during the eighth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Scott Marshall-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Bottom Line<\/h2>\n

Still, the Friars have a record that doesn’t seem accurate. The interesting thing is that the Friar Faithful talk about the club as if their win-loss record were reversed. The club is eight games over .500 and is on pace for 97 wins. That would give the club its third consecutive 90-plus win season. That’s yet to happen in franchise history, with the Padres only putting up six 90-plus win seasons since they became an MLB team in 1969.<\/p>\n

But if San Diego can continue to scratch wins across the board, winning any way that they can, they’ll manage to make the postseason for the third year straight. Whether or not they can win the division crown for the first time since 2006 is another story, but the Padres are certainly making a bid to do so.<\/p>\n

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

The San Diego Padres have an historically bad offense. It’s not new, either. They’ve struggled to have a consistent offense for several years, yet have remained in contention in spite of that. The club has made the postseason in four of the last six seasons, and they’re coming off back-to-back 90-plus win seasons. Last season, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5784,"featured_media":121763,"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":[1071,35,30],"tags":[29281,1625,28952,3318,43,1490,5099,292],"class_list":["post-121722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-news","category-padres","tag-craig-stammen","tag-fernando-tatis-jr","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-luis-campusano","tag-manny-machado","tag-miguel-andujar","tag-ty-france","tag-xander-bogaerts"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121722","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=121722"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121756,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121722\/revisions\/121756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}