Major League Baseball
The Padres' secret is out

By Kevin Baxter
The Miami Herald

DENIS POROY / AP Mark Loretta, right, and Brian Giles have led the Padres into playoff contention a year after finishing with the most losses (98) in the National League.

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SAN DIEGO — Mark Loretta was standing in front of the bat rack in the first-base dugout before last month's All-Star Game in Houston when Colorado Rockies manager Clint Hurdle, addressing no one in particular, called out, "There he is, the best-kept secret in the National League."

And for most of the season, you could have said the same thing about Loretta's team, the San Diego Padres, which lost more games than any team in the National League last season. But now, with the pennant races gearing up for the stretch drive, both the Padres and their All-Star second baseman are no longer sneaking up on anyone.

San Diego, which hasn't had a winning season since their World Series year of 1998, has won five of its past six games to pull within five games of the Dodgers in the National League West standings and one game of the Chicago Cubs in the wild-card race with five weeks still to play.

"We feel like we're a pretty good ballclub," said Loretta, who leads the National League in hits (173) and ranks among the top 10 in five other offensive categories, including hitting, where he's second with a .343 average. "We had a lot of young pitchers who had another year to mature. Even though they took their lumps last year, they learned a lot from it. And this year, they've done a much better job with a better cast around them."

Attendance increase

The additional revenue the Padres received from moving into Petco Park this season, where attendance is running nearly 800,000 ahead of last season through 66 home games, has helped fund that improvement. Banking on those new dollars, San Diego went out last winter and got a starting catcher, two starting outfielders, three starting pitchers and a setup man.

If you go back to the final week of last August, when the Padres traded for outfielder Brian Giles and prepared to call up shortstop Khalil Greene, San Diego has four new everyday starters this season, two new arms in its rotation and a revived bullpen with the return of Trevor Hoffman and the addition of Akinori Otsuka — all at a cost of more than $21 million.

"We're a different ballclub. I think a much-improved ballclub in all aspects of the game," said manager Bruce Bochy, who had just two winning seasons in nine years as a major-league manager before this summer. "A new ballpark's not the answer to some of the revenue problems, but it definitely gives you different ways to create revenues so that you can increase your payroll and get the players you need to win."

And management's investment in the Padres has paid off handsomely. San Diego has spent 32 days in first place in the West this season, quite a difference from last year, when it was 9-1/2 games out after a month and 23 games back at the All-Star break en route to a 64-98 season, third worst in the franchise's past three decades.

Team pride

"Coming off a horrible year last year and to make this much improvement, that's something we're proud of," Bochy said. "The one thing we didn't want to happen in this city was for the city to be just proud of its ballpark. But also proud of the team that's playing in it."

Left-hander David Wells, a former San Diego high-school star the Padres signed as a free agent last winter for $1.25 million, is after more than just pride, however.

He wants to reach the playoffs — and with the Padres, owners of the second-best road record in the majors, playing 20 of their last 35 games away from home, they just might make it.

"It would be a shame if we don't get in the playoffs with the team that we have," said Wells, who has reached the postseason nine times in his 18-year career. "It's just a matter of wanting it. We've got what it takes. Now, it's the little things that can win it from this point on."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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