Clearly, the surging Padres aren’t going to win every game.

They do need to win more games against the cellar-dwelling Rockies.

Manny Machado and Donovan Solano both homered, but a souped-up bullpen stumbled on Friday night and the Padres’ bewildering struggles against Colorado continued in a 5-2 loss in front of a sellout crowd of 44,393 at Petco Park.

“Tomorrow, we’ve got to change that,” second baseman Xander Bogaerts said. “These guys probably feel good playing against us. We have to come in here and change that tomorrow.”

The Padres began the weekend with a 29-23 record against teams in playoff position and have clinched their first season series against the Dodgers since 2010.

Lot of good that will do if they’re giving games away against the Rockies, who have won six of the first eight meetings and are a win away from clinching the season series.

Friday’s lead unraveled when it looked like the Padres’ strength was ready to bring it home.

Machado homered off Padres nemesis Austin Gomber to tie the game at 1 in the second inning, Donovan Solano added a solo shot in the fourth and Randy Vásquez got through five innings to hand a one-run lead to the bullpen that A.J. Preller strengthened ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.

First out of the gate on Friday: Jeremiah Estrada.

Only he walked the first two batters he faced, gave up an infield single to load the bases and coughed up three runs on Kris Bryant’s one-out single and Jake Cave’s two-out blooper.

“Jeremiah’s been fantastic for us,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “The two walks, that got him. Some softer contact and found a hole and next thing you know they threw up some runs.”

Alek Jacob got the final out of the sixth inning, but he allowed the Rockies an insurance run in the seventh on back-to-back singles and Ryan McMahon’s ensuing sacrifice fly.

It was the first run that Jacob has allowed in six appearances in the majors.

Jacob followed with a scoreless eighth and Yuki Matsui threw a perfect ninth.

The Padres can only hope Friday’s stumble is a one-off for a team that’s still won nine of its first 12 since the All-Star break.

For a team that’s gone through the Guardians, Orioles and Dodgers in stacking that second-half success, there certainly isn’t much logic in such drastic struggles against a team that walked into Petco Park 30 games under .500 and a 16-41 road record.

Except this.

“It’s the big leagues,” first baseman Jake Cronenworth said Friday afternoon as he assessed the challenge of carrying momentum forward after improving to 7-3 on the season against the Dodgers.

As in they are more than aware of the wrench that any team can throw into their plans at any point.

In fact, they’ve already been swept once at home by the Rockies after winning a series against the Dodgers, as was the case in May.

They believe things are different now.

“We’re further along in the season,” Cronenworth said. “We know who we are more than we have all year. I think the way we’ve been playing as well is different.”

It just didn’t materialize on Friday against the Rockies.

Their only runs scored on home runs from Machado, his 17th of the season, and Solano, his fourth.

Jurickson Profar looked like he’d put a charge in their hopes to start the eighth, but center fielder Brenton Doyle leapt against the wall in right-center to rob him of a home run to get his bullpen started on the right foot.

“That’s tough,” Bogaerts said. “The timing of the game, too, right there. If that ball’s gone, a home run? It sucked the air out of the whole ballpark for sure. … Credit to Gomber, he kept us off-balance the whole night. I feel like that ball from Profar would have been a nice game-changer possibility and he made an unbelievable play.”

By the time Gomber exited after seven innings, he’d struck out five and scattered five hits and a walk.

Through three starts against the Padres, Gomber has allowed three earned runs over 18 innings for a 1.50 ERA.

Two of his three wins this season are against the Padres.

Shoot, six of the Rockies’ 41 victories this season are against the Padres.

Rebounding from his worst start of the season (2 IP, 6 ER), Vásquez paid only for the solo homer that Brendan Rodgers pulled to left to start the second inning.

Vásquez struck out four in five innings and allowed just three hits despite walking two batters and hitting another before giving a one-run lead to the new-look relief corps.

“I was confident; I still am confident in that bullpen,” Vásquez said through interpreter Danny Sanchez. “We have a lot of talent in that bullpen, so I’m super confident in those guys.”

Originally Published: August 2, 2024 at 9:17 p.m.

Facing a second straight left-hander to start a game, Donovan Solano will start back-to-back games for just the second time since Xander Bogaerts’ activation in mid-July. .

This time, it’s Luis Arraez sitting as Jake Cronenworth will return to first base after sitting Wednesday’s finale against the Dodgers.

Solano is hitting .306/.383/.431 against left-handers this year, including the walk-off hit in the pinch for Cronenworth on Tuesday.

Solano will hit second as the DH to start a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies.

Cronenworth and rookie Jackson Merrill are the lone lefties in Friday’s lineup.

Cronenworth is hitting .193/.265/.252 against lefties, while Merrill is hitting .211/.241/.349.

They will hit fifth and seventh, respectively.

Rockin’ the pink & mint tonight 🏝️ pic.twitter.com/oHZc2NmPrr

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) August 2, 2024

Meantime, Arraez is hitting .283/.303/.359 against lefties.

Without Arraez in the lineup, Jurickson Profar will serve as the leadoff hitter. Switch-hitter Bryce Johnson will get a second consecutive start against a left-handed starting pitcher, while Kyle Higashioka will start behind the plate.

Here is how the Rockies will line up for the opener:

How we lineup in sunny San Diego ☀️ pic.twitter.com/BhNKlVUy9I

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) August 2, 2024

Friday’s pitching matchup

Rockies LHP Austin Gomber (2-7, 4.79 ERA)

He has allowed one run in 11 innings over two starts this year against the Padres, striking out seven against five walks. Gomber, however, has a 6.91 ERA over his last three starts (14⅓ IP).

Here is how he has fared against current Padres:

Padres RHP Randy Vásquez (3-6, 4.82 ERA)

He’s coming off his worst start of the season, as he allowed six runs, tied for a season-high, on four hits and a season-high four walks over a season-low two innings. Vásquez has allowed nine runs in 6⅓ innings this season against the Rockies.

Here is how Vasquez has fared against current Rockies:

Originally Published: August 2, 2024 at 4:03 p.m.

A pair of just-released reports have bad news for utility customers in the San Diego area and across California: Prepare to pay higher bills.

An annual report from the California Public Utilities Commission predicts “electric rates are expected to continue increasing above inflation through 2027” for all three of the big investor-owned utilities in the Golden State — San Diego Gas & Electric, Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.

Looking at a more immediate horizon, a separate report from the Public Advocates Office predicts average residential electricity rates will increase next year for all three utilities.

Both reports show SDG&E’s cost projections rising at a slower rate than those of PG&E and Edison.

Each year, the utilities commission issues its Senate Bill 695 Report that looks at costs and rate increases and suggests ways to limit them. This year’s edition mentioned California’s “numerous clean energy projects” needed to meet the state’s “ambitious greenhouse gas and zero carbon targets.”

State policymakers want California to derive 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045, if not sooner.

While the report said the state is on track to meet the target, rate increases have outpaced inflation for the past three years and are expected to keep climbing in the near future.

The report anticipates the average electric rate for residential customers in San Diego Gas & Electric’s service territory will grow 5.6 percent through 2027.

Southern California Edison’s rates are expected to rise 6.8 percent and PG&E’s rates are projected to go up 10.8 percent.

“Cost containment is essential,” said the report issued by the utilities commission, known as the CPUC.

On July 22, the Public Advocates Office — the independent arm of the CPUC created to look out for ratepayer interests — released a quarterly report that produced its own set of sobering projections.

Using data submitted to the CPUC from utilities, the report from the Public Advocates Office, or PAO, shows residential electric rates since 2014 have nearly doubled for SDG&E and Edison. Rates in PG&E’s service territory have soared more than 100 percent in that time.

The report anticipates that average SDG&E residential customers will pay about 40.6 cents per kilowatt-hour by the start of 2025, which is a little more than 2 cents higher than the rate paid in March.

PG&E customers are expected to pay 40.4 cents per kilowatt-hour in January, while Edison customers will pay 33.9 cents.

The prediction from the PAO report includes what SDG&E is requesting from the CPUC in its general rate case for 2024 through 2027. The commission is expected to issue a proposed decision soon and then vote on whether to accept, reject or modify SDG&E’s spending request later this year.

Why are costs going up?

The costs of maintaining, upgrading and running the system that supplies power to customers across California are ultimately funded by ratepayers.

The CPUC’s mission is to make sure customers receive safe, reliable (and in recent years) clean utility service at reasonable rates.

The existing system that distributes power to customers “will need significant upgrades to accommodate the anticipated load from electric vehicles, electric heat pumps, and other electric appliances,” the SB 695 report said.

The costs of integrating upgrades and clean energy projects — as well as things like poles and wires and maintaining existing more conventional assets such as natural gas plants — are folded into rates that customers pay.

Another major driver of costs is wildfire prevention, which get rolled into rates customers pay.

SDG&E, for example, has spent about $5 billion after the Witch Creek, Guejito and Rice wildfires in 2007 destroyed more than 1,300 homes, killed two people and injured 40 firefighters. One of the fires was caused by a tree limb that fell onto an SDG&E line during high winds.

Since then, SDG&E efforts have included:

• establishing 222 weather stations that measure wind speed, temperatures and humidity every 10 minutes, and
• placing about 45 percent of utility infrastructure underground

Much of PG&E’s increase in customer rates over the past few years can be attributed to a series of devastating wildfires in Northern California that forced PG&E into bankruptcy proceedings, causing the utility to boost wildfire prevention spending.

“Wildfire mitigation costs have climbed since 2021 and are projected to continue their upward trend due to climate change-induced risks,” the SB 695 report said.

The CPUC and the Public Advocates Office each said another contributor to rising rates is Net Energy Metering — the program that compensates rooftop solar customers when their systems generate more energy than they consume.

In a controversial decision, CPUC commissioners in December 2022 ruled that new rooftop solar customers will no longer receive credits at the retail rate of electricity when their systems generate excess energy. Instead, they will get paid at the “actual avoided cost,” which is much lower.

The rationale behind the ruling? The commission believed the more generous compensation rate led to a “cost-shift” in which ratepayers who don’t have solar ended up paying an unfair share of the fixed costs that come with maintaining the electric system — things like wires, substations and transformers.

That, the SB 695 report says, translates to an average cost burden of roughly $20 to $35 per month for customers without rooftop solar.

The CPUC does not expect the new rules will fully offset the differential because rooftop customers who installed their systems before the decision was passed won’t be immediately affected.

Those customers still get compensated at the retail rate for 20 years from the time their systems were installed. For example, a solar customer who had a system installed in 2018 still gets credited at the retail rate until 2038. After that, the customer would be credited at the lower rate.

“Every time rates go up, that subsidy goes up and that’s really kind of a runaway train,” said Michael Campbell, the PAO’s assistant deputy director of energy.

But advocates for the solar industry bitterly reject that argument.

“This cost-shift thing is manufactured scapegoating,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar & Storage Association. “The utilities do it because they have a profit motive to try to squash consumers generating their own energy. And then, what appears to us is, the regulators (at the CPUC) are repeating it because it’s a very convenient cover for them because they simply have not done a good job of restraining utility spending. Utility spending has been out of control.”

Any hope that rates will go down long-term?

The CPUC’s SB 695 report says integrating a growing demand for more electricity comes with “challenges and costs, but also opportunities.”

While the costs of upgrading the electric distribution system will cost “tens of billions of dollars,” the commission anticipates “significant cost savings” by residential and business customers as they reduce spending on natural gas, gasoline and other fossil fuels via electrification.

The CPUC “is taking action to mitigate costs, put downward pressure on rates, and promote equity during this significant transformation of the energy sector in California,” the 112-page report concludes.

The San Diego-based Utility Consumers’ Action Network, or UCAN, is not as optimistic.

“There is no indication that rates will go down, especially since people will be needing/using more electricity due to electrification goals and more extreme weather,” UCAN executive director Edward Lopez said in an email to the Union-Tribune.

“We will need to see a dramatic change in the way the CPUC regulates SDG&E — and other utilities — if (lower rates) happen in the long-term,” said Lopez, who also alluded to SDG&E reporting profits of $936 million last year.

SDG&E spokesperson Anthony Wagner said “the need to keep energy costs down for customers has become more urgent than ever,” while asserting that nearly 25 percent of customer bills are driven by California legislative mandates.

“At SDG&E we are listening and taking action to stabilize electric bills and address the affordability challenge head-on,” Wagner said in an email. Those actions include reducing operating costs, seeking approval from the CPUC to spread costs over a longer period of time and pursuing money from the federal government to offset expenses related to transmission infrastructure.

As per CPUC rules, utilities such as SDG&E cannot profit on the price of electricity or natural gas. Instead, they make money primarily on more infrastructure projects, where they can earn a rate of return that hovers around 7 percent — provided the CPUC gives the project the green light.

Critics say the system gives power companies an incentive to spend money on capital investments that may not be needed.

Others say California should tap the brakes on its 100 percent decarbonization goals.

“I’m not surprised” by reports of rates outpacing inflation, said Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, a Pasadena think tank that espouses free-market solutions to policy matters. “When you put on costly mandates, you can expect prices will rise and you can expect that people who are lower income, who live farther away from the ocean in inland areas, they’re going to have the highest burdens.”

In the meantime, almost 1 in 5 households in California (18.4 percent) are behind on their energy bills. In SDG&E’s service territory the figure is 23 percent, with the average amount owed being $737, as of May. The average past-due Southern California Edison customer owed $1,013.

“The good news is that all of the policymakers very clearly understand that we are in a rates crisis and there needs to be some action,” said Campbell of the Public Advocates Office. “But without some real changes, it’s hard to think that we’re going to see a period where rates are slowing down below the rate of inflation.”

Rate increases not only affect SDG&E customers but also impact customers enrolled in the county’s two community choice energy programs — San Diego Community Power and the Clean Energy Alliance.

That’s because the rates SDCP and CEA charge deal only with the costs of purchasing electricity generation for the residents and businesses in their respective municipalities.

Above and beyond that, costs associated with the transmission, distribution and delivery of power remain with SDG&E and are passed on to customers enrolled in SDCP and CEA in their overall monthly bills.

Originally Published: August 2, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.