JUS MLB BLOG 9/30: THE PADRES WIN BIG. MAYBE WE SHOULD LEARN SOME PATIENCE.

Patience.

Apparently it’s important.

Who knew?

The Padres absolutely crushed the Cubs 8-0 last night at Petco Park and now sit one win away from advancing to the NLDS.

Michael King was ridiculous.

Seven innings.

One hit.

The Cubs didn’t get that hit until the seventh inning.

Fernando Tatis Jr. homered on the first pitch he saw.

Manny Machado homered two batters later.

Xander Bogaerts added another one.

The Padres basically walked into the playoffs and immediately started hitting baseballs into various parts of San Diego.

Which brings us back to patience.

BASEBALL IS BASICALLY ONE LONG LESSON IN PATIENCE

You need patience to wait for the right pitch.

You need patience to know when to leave your starter in the game.

You need patience to know when it’s finally time to pull him and go to the bullpen.

You need patience when your best hitter suddenly looks like he’s never seen a baseball before.

And you definitely need patience when your entire team goes into a slump and starts playing like they’ve collectively forgotten the rules.

Because baseball is different from almost anything else in sports.

The season is ridiculously long.

And several times during that season you are going to become absolutely convinced of two completely opposite things.

At some point you’ll think:

The World Series trophy is basically a formality.

Just give it to us now.

Why are we even playing the rest of these games?

Then three weeks later:

THIS TEAM MAY NEVER WIN ANOTHER BASEBALL GAME AGAIN.

Everybody needs to be traded.

Fire everybody.

Start over.

Baseball.

Unless you’re the Dodgers and you just win all the time.

But nobody cares.

JUS MAY HAVE LOST ITS PATIENCE

We have to admit something.

At several points this season, the staff here at JUS lost our patience with the Padres.

And by “staff,” I mean:

Me.

And Kodiak.

Kodiak probably handled it better.

We lashed out.

There were articles.

There were accusations.

There were some things said that, in retrospect, may have been slightly excessive.

We called new Padres pitcher Casey Mize an exploding oxygen tank on Apollo 13.

We said Jackson Merrill would swing at any pitch that crossed the plate somewhere beneath the ionosphere layer of the atmosphere.

There may have been some other things.

We were frustrated.

We had lost our patience.

And we’d now like to formally apologize.

Sort of.

THE PADRES RESPONDED

Here’s the funny part.

Instead of collapsing, the Padres did exactly what good baseball teams are supposed to do.

They kept playing.

They kept working.

They kept grinding through it.

And eventually things turned around.

Now they’re one of the hottest teams in baseball.

Last night wasn’t even close.

Tatis immediately set the tone with a leadoff home run.

Machado followed with another homer two batters later.

Bogaerts added one of his own.

Jackson Merrill drove in two.

And while all of that was happening, Michael King was basically refusing to let the Cubs participate in the baseball game.

King carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning and finished with seven innings of one-hit baseball.

That’s domination.

And because King went seven innings, the Padres didn’t have to burn through their best bullpen arms.

That could matter a lot tonight.

BASEBALL HAS A WAY OF TEACHING YOU ABOUT LIFE

This is one of the reasons baseball is such a great sport.

It teaches you how to deal with failure.

Because failure is built into the game.

A great hitter fails most of the time.

Great teams lose games they should win.

Great pitchers occasionally get destroyed.

You can do everything right and still lose.

And then you come back tomorrow and do it again.

There’s something bigger in that lesson.

God teaches us patience throughout life in much the same way.

Things go well.

Things go badly.

Sometimes everything looks like it’s falling perfectly into place.

Other times you’re wondering what happened and why nothing is going the way you thought it would.

The answer isn’t to panic every time circumstances change.

It’s to keep going.

Have patience.

Trust God.

And maybe don’t immediately write a blog comparing your new pitcher to an exploding spacecraft component.

We’re still working on that last part.

NOW DO IT AGAIN

Here’s where the patience lesson becomes important again.

The Padres won 8-0.

Great.

Celebrate it.

Enjoy it.

Then forget about it.

Because this is baseball.

And the Cubs are a very good baseball team.

Game 1 means absolutely nothing if San Diego lets Chicago come back and take Games 2 and 3.

The Padres cannot give this team momentum.

They can’t start thinking about Milwaukee.

They can’t start thinking about the NLDS.

They can’t start thinking about anything except tonight.

Finish the series.

Nick Pivetta gets the ball for San Diego.

The Padres’ bullpen is rested.

Petco will be insane again.

Everything is set up exactly the way San Diego wants it.

Now take care of business.

PATIENCE

A few weeks ago we were yelling at this team.

Today they’re one win away from moving on.

That’s baseball.

That’s life.

Things change quickly.

Sometimes for the worse.

Sometimes for the better.

Sometimes you just have to keep going long enough to see what happens next.

So whatever happens tonight, JUS will remain calm.

We will be patient.

We will trust the process.

We will not overreact.

We will not write anything ridiculous.

We will demonstrate maturity and perspective.

Probably.

Padres-Cubs. Game 2. Tonight.

Finish it.

And whatever happens…

we’ll have patience.

We hope.