Padres Vibe Check...

Nick Pavetta seems to have saved the Padres' season. His start last night coincides with the vibes also being immaculate. What's going on, everybody? Christian Pedersen back with another episode of Padres Digest, the show where I hear myself, I know, ping-ponging back and forth. Give up. I'll be done forever. Am I discontinuing the show? Are we the best team in baseball? Somewhere in the middle is the truth, but this is all to say that as much as I pretend to be a journalist, I'm also just a fan, like all of you guys. So I ride the emotional highs and lows. Right now, I'm on the up-and-up, and yes, the team is still technically out of the playoffs, but we are a half-game back, and I want to talk about how, like I said, I think that Nick Pavetta coming back yesterday felt like the big exhale, and man, he's got a new haircut, and we'll talk about a bunch more of it on this episode of Padres Digest. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to the show where Andrew and I bring you guys daily content. if you want to like subscribe comment share follow all those other youtube buttons it's always greatly appreciated before we get to like the main thesis got to talk about a couple of just housekeeping moves that the padres have announced first is the really uh releasing a couple of guys JP France and Jose Clerk are on their way out and the padres actually kind of funny enough while we are playing um the nationals have signed one of the nationals minor leaguers uh mr gott here we signed a triple a pitcher hasn't pitched in the majors since 2023 but nonetheless i think that this is an interesting decision to even with the return of some of our star players deciding to just keep amassing more and more pitching i don't hate it i think that the padres honestly can do all should do all that they can um also uh blake hunt got designated for assignment i didn't even have a graphic made for that but still to say just like aj preller is not resting on his laurels and is keeping busy in all of this but the blake hunt one actually kind of ties into of all the things that I wanted to talk about. How do we like Ethan Salas so far? The offensive numbers, not necessarily jumping off the page the way that he was in AAA, but I'd said pregame before Pavetta started yesterday that I would, this was before the lineup even came out, not to toot my own horn, but I was going to be curious if Salas was going to be paired with Pavetta given that he caught him in the minor leagues. Pavetta and Salas looked fantastic yesterday as a major league combo. So I would think that that is going to then be Ethan Salas' pairing now for the rest of the season. I'll be curious to see if they use him outside of that or if they leave Pavetta and Salas together to start. At this point, what's going to be three more starts, give or take, depending on how they line everything up in the last couple of series. But that feels like a really great safety net. The series, as we look at the rest of the season, is what I want to get to today because talking about I said uh Merrill is heating up Manny's got a new haircut Nando's talking about how you know this is a long season it's a marathon but things are clicking and it seems like everything really is lining up for the Padres in a way that is optimistic but I especially want to talk about it in the context of kind of figuring out how you guys feel because i'm looking over the Diamondbacks schedules and the Diamondbacks and Padres are going to close out the season together as they are playing the last two series for the Padres are Dodgers Diamondbacks so we are going to end on a tough note and it i'll remind you that we are sitting here right now um still chasing the Diamondbacks by a half game so if we keep doing what we've done the last two series and just winning two out of three and Diamondbacks winning two out of three and jockeying back and forth it could be for all the marbles in that final series of the season but right now you've got what i had previously alluded to being both an easy and key stretch of the season two more against the Washington Nationals where we're going to see Casey Mize and Walker Buehler and i gotta think that i'm hoping for this if there is as good of an opportunity for Mize to have a bounce back it would be right here right now against Washington following that we have San Francisco for Robbie Ray to get his shot at the revenge game if you will but I don't I don't know if that's really Robbie Ray's mind or not if you parted with any bad blood but you get what I'm saying after those three that we got against the Giants on the road And we're going to be on the road at the Rockies. And I am curious how you guys are placing the importance on every single one of these games. Because by that second Rockies series, we would get us another Pavetta out and have a little bit better feel for if that was just, you know, he had adrenaline pumping and was looking good because the Nationals were bad. or if this was just Pavetta's season-long little bout with an injury, but is good. But I don't think that there could be a better scenario to ask for dipping Pavetta's feet back into the majors than having him play against the Nationals, then let the team go smash the Giants, pick up more and more of that momentum, and then go into Colorado and have Pavetta back in. and I'm really harping on Pavetta and I get that there are other pitchers on this team and we got Bueller, we got to get Mize back and that is a whole effort. But the trickle down for me of if we can have a really, like if we add an equality starter, maybe not somebody that's going to be a seven and two thirds, throw 125 pitches kind of guy. But if you look at the body of evidence and the body of work for the Padres this season, The biggest problem that we have really, I think, suffered from is starting pitchers letting things get out of hand way too early and just being like, oh, second inning, five runs, third inning, three runs, whatever. It puts our offense in a need-to-come-back, big-time basis, and it immediately taxes our bullpen because when you're at 78 pitches and already given up four runs by the fourth, just things aren't where you want them to be or need them to be in order to be successful. But if Pavetta can provide five innings, one or two run base, keep it close and keep it good. I think that just spreads such immaculately good vibes throughout the rest of that clubhouse in a way that feels like it's, dare I say, it is all coming together. Now, I get that that could be hyperbolic because we're talking about sneaking into the last wildcard spot. But if we get into the last wildcard spot and Pavetta has, let's call it two good and one mediocre start with, I would fill in the blank with what that fourth one is. And we go into the postseason with King, Pavetta, Robbie Ray, Walker Buehler. I don't know who does that third spot. Maybe you go Robbie Ray because he's a lefty and you just trust that some of the stuff that he has shown us during the regular season has been some, you know, guys are going to have bad days anyway. it's not a full-blown disaster but nonetheless those you know three to four guys and that's could be talking about winning some series especially if it's coinciding with Tatis being on fire, Machado not chasing pitches, Merrill hitting well enough, everyone else is playing good defense, we've got Campy being his best version of himself it just to me feels all well like i don't know about you guys but it felt like yesterday really was the Padres click let me know what you think drop a comment like subscribe share until next time we'll talk to you guys