The Padres Home Opener 2017: Baseball is Back

This Friday at 3:40pm, the first pitch of the 2017 season at Petco Park will be thrown! While the Padres are starting out their season away at the Dodgers in Los Angeles, opening day in San Diego is sure to be exciting. The San Francisco Giants are in town to face off against the Padres and will be here all next weekend for the series. Show up to the park early for your chance to get an opening day t-shirt to celebrate the new season. Looking for other Padres giveaways this season? Read our story about it here.

The Padres run at Spring Training this preseason hasn’t been the best, with their record standing at 11-20 with two games left to play in Arizona. Both times that they’ve faced the Giants have resulted in losses, but, hopefully the hometown crowd and the San Diego sun will give the Padres what they need to give the city a win on opening day.

As far as the active roster goes, 16 pitchers are lined up for the season, as well as three catchers, seven infielders, and four outfielders.

Last season, the Padres finished last in the NL West, behind division rivals Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. With series against most of these teams early in the season, we can hope to see wins soon within the division. Given our roster and how we played last year, things aren’t necessarily looking up, but all the fans can do is show up to games, grab a beer, and cheer on the Padres regardless. The Padres finished last in the league in both batting average and on-base percentage…for the third year in a row. Joe Peta of ESPN has predicted that the team could have the lowest projected win total.

An area of major concern for the Padres is starting pitchers–we don’t have great options. The three that were chosen for opening day in Los Angeles have less than admirable stats going for them. Jhoulys Chacin, opening day starter, had a 4.81 ERA last year while on the Angels and Braves in 144 pitched innings. This was the most he had pitched since 2013. Next up is left-hander Clayton Richard, who hasn’t made over 12 starts in a season since 2012. Jered Weaver holds the number three spot. His fastball averages 83 MPH, which explains his 5.06 ERA and 5.62 FIP last year. The numbers feel like a triple-A starting lineup, which doesn’t bode well for San Diego’s MLB team. If these problems haven’t been sorted out in the offseason, chances of them suddenly fixing themselves doesn’t look too good.

Our Padres did outscore some teams last year, even the New York Yankees–but even that doesn’t guarantee wins. The best we can hope for this season is some wins and maybe some good trades along the way to try and make the team better in seasons to come. This year probably won’t be the Padres year.

Even though we may not have a winning team, don’t let that stop you from heading to games! Get tickets for cheap, and enjoy the ballpark atmosphere on San Diego’s beautiful spring and summer nights.