In the Looney Tunes cartoons, it never ends well for Wile E. Coyote.
No matter how promising things appear for our four-legged friend, an anvil will fall from the sunny sky with Wile E.’s name on it.
Padres fans know the coyote life.
Whatever good fortune may be smiling on the Padres at the moment, it’s always another baseball club that ultimately gets to raise the World Series trophy, always fans of other drought-stricken franchises that get to slake their thirst.
And for their misery, Padres fans — unlike fans in places where winters are long and cold — don’t get to have sympathetic stories told about them, again and again, by national media outlets.
You get to wake up in San Diego. How bad can life be?
I’m mindful of the actual pain experienced by Padres fans since the franchise’s big-league entry in 1969. So I’ll say this in a whisper:
This time, the Padres have a puncher’s chance. Their arms and bats deserve respect. This team can do some important things.
You can make a decent baseball case for the Padres not only making the playoffs but posing tough tests there against any team they might encounter.
President of baseball operations A.J. Preller has put together a pitching staff loaded with wipeout stuff, and the Padres appear well-equipped to play the 27-out matchup game that defines postseason baseball.
Start with Dylan Cease and Michael King. Each starter stands among MLB’s top 10 in strikeouts, a co-status no other club’s duo can claim.
Behind them sits a recently upgraded bullpen that’s about as high-octane as it gets in today’s game.
This week’s trade for Marlins lefty closer Tanner Scott reprised Preller’s 2022 deal for Brewers closer Josh Hader.
Yes, Hader alienated some folks last summer by withholding his services at times.
But after helping the 2022 Padres secure a wild card, Hader helped the Padres make their first League Championship Series since 1998.
The best inning ever thrown by a Padre may have been Hader’s dismissal of three Dodgers stars in the playoff-series clinching victory, ed instead for Jake Cronenworth’s go-ahead single.
Though his track record is nowhere near as established, Scott this year boasts Hader-like dominance with two pitches. The opposition is hitting .100 against Scott’s fastball, .113 against the slider.
Holdover Robert Suarez, one of the sport’s better closers, is a right-handed version of Scott. His fastball plays up to its average 98.8 mph and enhances other pitches.
Adding more juice to the relief corps, Preller traded for Jason Adam, an established, right-handed reliever with a swerving changeup (.164 batting average, .274 expected slugging rate) and three other useful pitches.
So if the Padres’ arms deliver — and if health, always a concern, holds — opponents could be hearing ominous music as early as the fifth inning. (Maybe the “Jaws” theme?)
The new-look bullpen could make manager Mike Shildt look extra shrewd down the stretch.
Padres opponents are whiffing one every three times at righty Jeremiah Estrada’s fastball, which averages 97.1 mph. They’re batting .164 against the slider of Adrian Morejon, whose sinker, which sits at 97.5 mph, forces them to react faster. Yet another lefty, Yuki Matsui, blends his fastball, splitter and slider so well that hitters swing and miss at nearly 40 percent of the sliders.
For now, it’s a better bullpen than that of the Dodgers, who remain betting-line favorites to win the World Series.
Consider how the ‘pen fared in this week’s two-game sweep of L.A. On Tuesday, six Padres relievers combined to hold the Dodgers scoreless over six innings. Wednesday, four relievers — including Adam and fellow newcomer Bryan Hoeing — held the Dodgers hitless over 3 1/3 innings. Padres relievers struck out 12 Dodgers over the combined 9 1/3 innings of relief; they walked just four.
So, yes, I’d rather be Shildt than Dave Roberts when it’s time to choose among relievers.
“They matched up in the ‘pen,” Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager, said Tuesday night. Roberts added in what could be an October preview: “They used five or six guys tonight.”
Preller has done smart work with the offense, too.
Displaying an encouraging profile for October, when it’s tougher to make decent because neither pitchers nor managers hold back, the Padres boast rare bat control.
Entering Thursday, they led the big leagues in line-drive percentage, singles, batting average and expected batting average. And no one else’s strikeout rate was lower.
They’re not a collection of slappies, standing a respectable 12th in home runs, while awaiting the return of Fernando Tatis from a leg injury that has sidelined him since June 22.
Brightening the picture as well, injuries have clobbered the Dodgers and Braves, in addition to the NL Central-leading Brewers, to a much greater extent than the Padres.
Pertinent questions still apply, serving as caveats.
Will the starting pitching hold up — in both the wild-card race and beyond? Will Tatis return to the lineup and regain his stroke? Will a career-high workload catch up with King?
On the other hand, could Scott do for the Padres what summer-trade acquisition Aroldis Chapman, a high-octane left closer, did for the Cubs in 2016 on the way to the team’s first World Series title since 1908? Could the combination of closers Suarez and Scott, complemented by others, provide the late-game relief the 1990 Reds got from the “Nasty Boys” trio of Rob Dibble, Randy Myers and Norm Charlton en route to the World Series title?
Preller has been on a roll since early last offseason. He traded for King in December, dealt for Cease and Luis Arraez this spring and signed Donovan Solano for a box of Cracker Jack.
Now Preller has built up the Padres’ bullpen.
There’s enough aptitude here that it wouldn’t be the craziest of October feats for the Padres to make a nice run. Maybe this time, Wile E. Coyote will win.
