Padres Have Problems in Math, but Grades on Field Improving

Of all sports and games, none is as steeped in statistics as baseball. There are numbers to reflect darned near everything, and new categories are being contrived every year.

With this thought in mind, let’s take a look at some of the Padres’ numbers on the morning after the Fourth of July milestone.

Tony Gwynn was hitting .253 and had only 60 hits.

Benito Santiago was hitting .246 with 19 runs batted in.

Marvell Wynne was the club home run leader with 9, and Keith Moreland had only 3.

Carmelo Martinez was hitting .196, and he, too, had 19 RBIs.

John Kruk was hitting .259.

The two relief aces, Mark Davis and Lance McCullers, were a combined 4-11.

Two starting pitchers, Jimmy Jones and Ed Whitson, had earned-run averages above 4.00.

With so many key people suffering through sub-par years, the safe and sane conclusion would have to be that this was a ballclub in big trouble.

This club would figure to be somewhere between 25 and 30 games behind, to have won about 30% of its games and to be mired deep in last place in the National League West.

Obviously, this would be a depressed collection of ballplayers, looking at what remains of a helpless and hopeless season . . . and an awful lot of that season remains to be played. This club would not be playing out the season so much as tolerating its duration.

But anyone who has followed the Padres of late realizes that the doomsaying is not an accurate reflection of what is happening. Impressions and reality do not intersect.

Although they are not exactly in the midst of a pennant race, the Padres are not so far from the top that first place is a mere speck on the horizon . . . and they are in fifth place challenging the real bums of summer, the Cincinnati Reds, for fourth.

All of this good fortune has come about since the morning of May 28, when Larry Bowa was fired amid considerable controversy. The fuss was centered around whether Bowa had really been given a fair chance to handle a young team that did not appear likely to go very far, given the best of circumstances.

Hindsight being more sharply focused than on-the-spot reactions, it would appear that disposing of Bowa and replacing him with Jack McKeon was a rather enlightened move. Chub Feeney, who has taken more than his share of abuse since he became club president, deserves a pat on the back.

What McKeon has done is establish some emotional stability after none had existed under the volatile Bowa. Bowa played the part of a bullying older brother, and McKeon is more the firm but fair grandfather.

These players have responded with more improvement than I would have imagined possible. They are playing with enthusiasm, aggressiveness and confidence.

On the morning after the Fourth, the Padres were 37-46. These numbers are not likely to cause an outbreak of pennant fever, but consider that the record was 16-30 on the morning of May 28.

What the Padres have done under McKeon’s care is win 21 of the first 37 games. The post-Bowa winning percentage is .568, and only six teams in baseball exceed that for the season. Should the Padres continue at that rate for the remainder of the season, their record would be 82-80.

Obviously, we’re not talking any Miracle of Mission Valley here, but rather an astonishing turnaround from a miserable start and a much better record than anyone could have anticipated at the beginning of the season.

A point to be made is that it is not out of the question to suspect that the Padres very well may continue to win at such a rate through the last half of the season. They are already on a marked upswing, even though so many individuals are playing at statistical levels considerably below their norms.

If the first half were reflected by report cards, how many of these guys would get A’s? Start with Mark Davis and maybe finish with Mark Davis. Dennis Rasmussen, a new addition to the pitching staff, gets an incomplete that could switch to an A if he keeps going at a 4-0, 3.12 rate.

Others? Maybe B’s for McCullers and Wynne, but we’re talking C (or lower) for the remainder of the roster.

All of this can change in the weeks to come, especially if this upbeat bunch continues its upswing. No manager can hit or pitch or field for his players, but the key is that the players hit, pitch and field for the manager . . . and they are doing that for Jack McKeon.