San Diego, CA
Padres Daily: So much relief; quite a run; uplifting Peralta
Good morning,
Tanner Scott is the latest face of the Padres remarkable season.
If there is a theme for a team that was thought to have been built around stars, it is that there is no one face of this franchise in 2024. At least not on the field. Not where it matters.
This is actually a team. That is what has struck many observers around the league. It is, in the opinion of several of those people, the most complete roster A.J. Preller has ever put together.
Should last year’s incomplete, top-heavy Padres team have made the playoffs? Undoubtedly, yes. This is not an either/or topic.
But this year’s group has talent and complementary pieces. It has a bunch of guys willing to do whatever they are asked.
And Scott, one of three relievers Preller acquired at the trade deadline, fits right in.
“I like pitching,” he said last night. “It’s my job.”
That is pretty much what Robert Suarez says about all the times he has gone four outs or protected four-run leads.
They are essentially the same guy, throwing from opposite sides. Give them the ball. Whenever.
And the Padres have them both.
“It’s nice having those two guys back there,” Manny Machado said of the two All-Star closers.
Yeah. They have needed them.
The Padres last night got what has, of late, been a rare quality start, got some gifts from the Pirates and then turned the game over to Jason Adam, Scott and Suarez.
You can read Jeff Sanders’ game story (here) about Michael King’s six innings, the way the Padres got their runs and how those relievers worked the final three innings in a 3-0 victory over the reeling Pirates.
“We’ve got the horses down there,” King said of the bullpen.
Indeed. And because of a convergence of events, they are having to ride them.
In this run of eight games in eight days, the Padres have won seven times.
The first of those games featured a rain delay that forced the bullpen to cover eight innings. Five of the next six games were decided by one run, with the only one that wasn’t getting decided in 10 innings. (That was one of three times the Padres played an extra inning in a four-day span.)
Last night’s three-run margin was secured with a run in the eighth inning.
Each of the past seven games have been within one run or tied at some point after the seventh inning.
Mike Shildt has essentially had no choice but to go with his top arms late in games. And he has had to navigate the past two nights without Adrián Morejón, who has the flu.
So Scott has worked six of the past eight days, and Suarez has worked five of the past seven.
Shildt, whose main purpose is to “normalize” every circumstance so that his players see solutions in place of obstacles, suggested this is no big thing.
“It’s really no different than we’ve done with anybody all year,” he said.
Actually, no Padres reliever had been used five times in seven days or six times in eight days this season.
That does not make it wrong or untenable.
On the contrary, as has been stated in this space before, Shildt has been delivering a master class in bullpen management all season.
And he is pulling the right strings now.
He also has the right strings to pull.
I asked a poorly worded question after last night’s game regarding how it would be good to have a five-run lead instead of playing all these close games.
“Of course it would help,” Shildt said.
My point was — and a better phrasing of the question would have been — about how much better it would be if Shildt could give his high-leverage relievers a break.
Because this is unsustainable.
And Shildt acknowledged as much, even as he pushed back on the idea that there is any “concern” over how the team’s top relievers have had to be relied on so heavily.
“We like to have leads and have our guys pitch at the end,” he said. “So that part’s great, you know, but clearly they (can’t) pitch every night.”
Getting it done
The Padres have won 18 times in a 21-game span for the first time in team history.
There are a lot of reasons for this run of success.
One of them:
“Luck,” Xander Bogaerts said.
Sure.
That is what it takes to do something that, in an average season, is accomplished by just two or three teams.
As noted in yesterday’s newsletter, the Padres have done to the Pirates and Marlins over the past week what good teams often do to bad teams. They have taken advantage of miscues.
In every one of the Padres’ five victories, there was at least one crucial mistake by the Pirates.
On Monday, the Padres were helped to one of their two runs by a wild pitch and the other by an error. Last night, two of the Padres’ three runs were a direct result of errors.
It also requires playing some excellent baseball to win this much over a stretch of longer than three weeks.
The Padres have in this span generally played solid defense, gotten the aforementioned bullpen contributions and had just enough timely hits.
“It takes some special moments,” said Bogaerts, who was part of two World Series teams in Boston, including the 2018 team that had its own 18-3 stretch. “You have to have some Jackson Merrill home run-type stretches. … Solid pitching.”
You don’t throw wins out the window.
Not in the big leagues.
And the Padres were due some of the breaks they are getting now. They weren’t getting many in the season’s first couple months and didn’t get many throughout 2023.
“That’s baseball,” Machado said. “That’s why you play 162 games. And I always say, ‘It’s the beauty of playing a full season.’ There’s a lot of ups and downs and a lot of baseball gods to be dealt with. There’s good luck, there’s bad luck. So you take it as they come.”
Division math
The three best records since the All-Star break belong to teams in the National League West — the Padres (18-4), Diamondbacks (19-5) and Dodgers (15-8).
The Giants are 14-11, which is ninth best in MLB since the break.
Here are the NL wild-card standings:
Hitting the right notes
David Peralta is an unintentional life coach.
Speaking to him is like a hug wrapped in a smile lathered with a pep talk.
And it has nothing to do with his home run last night giving him four homers in his past 56 plate appearances or that he has nine hits (including three doubles and two homers) in his past 21 at-bats.
I wrote (here) about Peralta’s perspective back in June when he was batting .207 with a .544 OPS and acting outwardly in just about every way as if he could not be more pleased.
“Baseball is a kid’s game,” he said then. “And I play it and enjoy it as a kid. There is one thing that I’ve learned over and over in the years in baseball — today that you are here but you don’t know where you’re gonna be tomorrow.”
The 36-year-old Peralta knew back then he needed to hit or he might not have much time left with the Padres. He has been in the game a long time, been released, changed positions, worked his way through the fringes of the minor leagues, worked at McDonald’s to literally be able to afford to get himself from one league to another, played 11 big-league seasons, gone back to the minors …
He is not naive. He was asked the other day how much awareness he had that his time could be running short had he not started producing back in early July.
“You think about it every day,” Peralta said. “But I always think about how I can help the team to win. Baseball is a hard game. And I can’t put more stress on myself like, ‘I gotta hit , I gotta hit.’ If I start putting a lot of stress on myself, it’s not going to happen. I know what I have to do. I’ve got to keep working.
“You’ve got to keep the same attitude. I know it’s going to come. You’ve got to trust what you’re doing. I’ve got a great coaching staff, I’ve got great teammates. They support me the same way I support them. It’s a matter of time. It’s going to happen.”
While starting virtually every game in right field against opposing right-handers, Peralta has batted .299/.337/.529 in 28 games since July 3.
“Every time I step up to home plate I am always expecting something good is going to happen,” Peralta said. “Even if it doesn’t happen, turn the page. Next at-bat something good is going to happen. I’m going to keep doing it until something good happens.”
This is, by the way, whose locker is next to Merrill’s in the Padres clubhouse at Petco Park. It has been difficult to keep track of the phrases Peralta has said that the 21-year-old Merrill also says.
Hits keep coming
A Luis Ortiz slider broke down and in and hit Jurickson Profar just above the right ankle in the first inning last night.
It was the seventh time in eight games Profar was hit by a pitch, tying a major league record shared by three others.
While it doesn’t make the bruises go away, there is some solace.
Profar contributed to the Padres loading the bases and eventually scoring a run without getting a hit in last night’s first inning. And the Padres have scored in all but one of the innings in which he has been hit in this painful stretch.
My bad(s)
I wrote in a “tidbit” in yesterday’s newsletter that Ha-Seong Kim stole his league-leading 22nd base on Monday. Not the case. That should have said team leading.
Worse, I wrote an item yesterday on Martín Pérez and said he was starting last night. He was not. Ryan Finley and I even discussed that on our podcast Monday afternoon, and I still messed it up. Anyway, read the item again today, because Pérez is starting today.
I wasn’t going to mention how my day began at 4 a.m. ET on Monday in Miami and ended about 3 a.m. PT on Tuesday. But now I will, since I am so embarrassed by those gaffes (especially the Pérez one) that I need to offer an excuse.
Tidbits
- A win today would make the Padres 6-0 against the Pirates this season. They also won all six games against the Nationals this year. No Padres team has ever swept two season series of at least six games.
- The Padres have won eight straight series for the first time since 2007 and are 15 games above .500 for the first time since the end of 2022.
- Machado drove in two runs last night. The Padres are 19-0 when he drives in at least that many.
- Luis Arraez was 2-for-3 last night, raising his NL-leading average to .306. He also walked, his first time doing so in 12 games (80 plate appearances). Arraez’s 2.8 percent walk rate is the lowest of his career, as is his .338 on-base percentage.
- This is a nice thing:
The necklace Xander Bogaerts has been wearing was made by #Padres trainer Ricky Huerta’s daughter, Juliana, who is 13 and trying to raise money for her 8th grade trip to New York. He bought two necklaces off her to match his shoes (one orange, one blue). pic.twitter.com/oPEKYQWibt
— Annie Heilbrunn (@annieheilbrunn) August 13, 2024
All right, that’s it for me. Early game today (1:10 p.m. PT).
Talk to you tomorrow.
Originally Published:
San Diego, CA
Automated license plate readers and public surveillance cameras are coming to Imperial Beach
The city of Imperial Beach will soon install four Automated License Plate Readers and two additional “public safety cameras” in hopes of improving public safety.
On June 3, Imperial Beach city councilmembers voted to enter into an agreement with the San Diego Sheriff’s Office to place four license plate readers manufactured by surveillance giant Flock Safety at four proposed intersections, and they will also install two cameras in the city to monitor for criminal behavior.
The cameras, part of a two-month pilot program, seek to improve public safety in the South Bay coastal town.
The four proposed locations for the license plate cameras are Imperial Beach Boulevard and 13th Street, Palm Avenue and 13th Street, 13th Street and Elm and 9th Street and Elm Ave.
The proposed locations for the public cameras are on the median of Palm Avenue and 8th Street, Palm Avenue and Seacoast Drive and Imperial Beach Boulevard and Seacoast Drive.
For the license plate readers, city staff said they have proven their usefulness in cities and unincorporated areas throughout San Diego County for years.
“[License Plate Reader] technology has contributed to multiple arrests, including identifying suspects’ vehicles involved in retail thefts, gas station thefts, and vehicle burglaries. [License Plate Readers] have also assisted in identifying a suspect vehicle in an international hit-and-run homicide in Lemon Grove and a vehicle involved in a [pellet] gun case in Encinitas,” reads the city’s staff report to the city council.
City staff said the Sheriff’s Office recommends a total of eight license plate readers, but the city opted for four.
“This is a pilot program. We have to consider the trade-off of privacy for security,” said public speaker Vivian Dunbar. “People have been falsely arrested and falsely identified through the use of these cameras.”
Imperial Beach Mayor Pro-Tem Jack Fisher said that while he understands the privacy concerns, the benefits outweigh any negatives. “This is one of those programs where IB is not leading the charge. A few weeks back, everyone was aware of the tragedy that happened at the Islamic Center of San Diego and the license plate readers were key in tracking those individuals down. It’s good for us to do our part.”
Added Fisher, “The era of big brother has passed, if you have a cell phone, you know there is already tracking.”
The council unanimously voted in favor of the pilot program.
Utility man Samad Taylor was selected to the Major League roster from Triple-A El Paso in a corresponding move.
Tuesday night was a tale of two parties. Two election night parties.
At Liberty Station’s Stone Brewing, a small coterie of Democratic elected officials and functionaries and a larger coterie of news media shuffled around trying to make sense of the lackluster returns trickling in.
Meanwhile, at downtown’s US Grant Hotel, a much more spirited collection of Republican operatives and supporters laughed and drank in a blindingly-lit convention room, backed by a pianist’s rendition of “Billie Jean.”
The takeaway seemed clear: this was a not-so-great night for San Diego’s Democratic in-group. Chula Vista’s Republican mayor had a huge lead over his Democratic opponent. A tax on second homes lagged behind in the vote count. And several Republicans seemed to make it out of crowded primary fields in local races.
Hell, even if it was only a just-OK night for Republicans – that still seemed worth celebrating to them.
Normally we now get long stretches of days, even weeks of fingernail-biting anticipation as the county so slowly tallies the rest of the votes. But there doesn’t appear to be many close races to watch this time around. There are a couple. We start at the top:
It’s Becerra vs. Hilton
As of 11 p.m., with more than 50 percent of votes counted, it appeared that a Republican and Democrat — rather than two Democrats — would make it through to the general election. Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra led the race, with billionaire Tom Steyer on the outside looking in. The New York Times has a nice tracker here.
Empty Homes Tax Goes Down
Measure A presented a simple choice. What do voters in the city of San Diego have more disdain for – people with enough money to own a second home they leave empty, or new taxes? Turns out, it’s additional taxes. For now, at least.
Championed by Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, Measure A would have placed a tax on homes left vacant for more than half of the year. It was pitched as a way to both raise badly needed revenue for the city and, potentially, make available badly-needed housing.
As of Tuesday evening, the measure’s prospects looked grim, with about 58 percent of voters casting a ‘No’ vote. It will become the second citywide tax increase rejected by voters in as many years. Despite the poor showing, intern Naomi Granata found the pitch resonated with some voters in North Park.
San Diego County Assessor-Recorder-Clerk Jordan Marks was one of a number of local electeds who came out in opposition of the tax. He said the city’s housing problems couldn’t be solved by what he called “bad taxes.”
“This result reflects that Sean Elo-Rivera and the City Council have lost the trust of the public and that voters are reading the fine print,” Marks said.
Elo-Rivera said it wasn’t looking good, but he was hopeful the picture would improve. Ultimately, he thought the money spent opposing the tax — and the distorted message he felt it sent — was too big to overcome.
“There was an enormous amount of money spent, and not just money spent, but money spent to trick voters into thinking that something was going to impact them that wasn’t,” Elo-Rivera said.
No Ammar
Republican County Supervisor Jim Desmond led the way in the 48th Congressional District on Tuesday night.
What we were waiting for is the candidate who would go with him to the runoff. It will attract a ton of national attention and money. It was one of the seats made more competitive by Democrats in the special redistricting vote last year.
San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and Ammar Campa-Najjar, squared off for a chance to wrest the seat out of longtime Republican control. With 53 percent reporting, von Wilpert held a commanding lead over Campa-Najjar. The councilmember will advance to face Desmond in November.
On the ground in the district, reporter Tigist Layne found that the national politics that led to the redistricting fight were also front and center on voters’ minds as they headed into vote.
Bailey vs. Crosby in Coastal Council District
Former Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey and Deputy City Attorney Nicole Crosby will advance to the November election in District 2 of the San Diego City Council.
Bailey, a Republican-turned-Independent, seemed destined to finish in the top two after he attracted significant attention on social media. The race for the second spot was more uncertain. Josh Coyne, like Crosby, attracted significant Democratic support. And Mandy Havlik — a more development-resistant candidate — also had strong grassroots support in Point Loma.
Our new intern Fiona Bork talked to voters in District 2, which covers the city’s southern coastline, who said that affordability was the most important issue. Exactly how that explained their electoral choices differed by a lot. One voter said Coyne’s market-driven approach to building more housing appealed to him. Another liked Havlik’s approach to limiting vacation rentals. A third voted for Bailey because she wanted less development and more public transit. It seems unlikely that Bailey, who is fiscally conservative, would support massively expanding public transit options. Read the full story here.
City Council District 4: The race for southeastern San Diego’s council district featured three candidates: incumbent Henry Foster, Martha Abraham and Johnny Lee Dang.
Abraham was highly critical of Foster in her campaign and that seemed to resonate well with voters. At the latest count, she led Foster by several hundred votes.
Foster has many supporters in the district, but the city’s handling of catastrophic flooding in January 2024 — among other issues — has led to massive distrust of City Hall.
Council District 6: Incumbent Kent Lee had one prominent opponent, Mark Powell, who is a former member of the County Board of Education. They will both make the runoff but Lee got 55 percent of the vote in early counting.
City Council District 8: San Ysidro School Board Member Antonio Martinez and current District 8 chief of staff, Gerardo Ramirez, lead in this race — which was crowded with Democrats. Venus Molina, who serves as the chief of staff to Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, trailed closely behind in third place. This is one of the races close enough to change as the registrar continues counting votes. Molina’s count improved slightly as the night went on.
Our South County reporter, Jim Hinch, spoke with voters outside the Otay Mesa/Nestor Branch Library. One voter told Hinch she voted for Molina because she liked that she is local and a single mother. Read the full story here.
Election Watch Party Bonus: Ramirez’ supporters and family gathered at the Landing Strip, a bar and restaurant at Brown Field Municipal Airport, to watch results roll in. They broke out into applause when results showed him coming in second.
“For some of the folks it might seem like ‘hey man’ you’re second place, but we’re in there. This is a huge, wonderful sign,” said Ramirez.
DeMaio’s Gonna Gloat
Two local elections were something of a proxy battle between two warring factions of the Republican Party. Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s team won, again. Every time local Republican leaders unite to oppose him or the people he supports, DeMaio wins. This time it was about two races: the one to replace County Supervisor Jim Desmond and the one to replace State Sen. Brian Jones.
In the county supervisor race: San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones left no doubt she would make it to the runoff. The only remaining question is who will face her — Vista Mayor John Franklin or Kyle Krahel, the former chair of the Democratic Party. After the first votes were counted, Krahel held a slight advantage with 20 percent of the vote compared to Franklin’s 19 percent. DeMaio went all in for Jones and she led the field with more than 41 percent of the vote.
In the state Senate race: As expected, former San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott made the runoff for the state Senate District 40 seat. She got nearly 45 percent of the votes counted so far. The real question was who would go with her. That Republican battle between Kristie Bruce-Lane and San Marcos City Councilmember Ed Musgrove seems to have also gone DeMaio’s way with Bruce-Lane holding a 4.7-percentage-point advantage over Musgrove.
That’s not enough of a gap to call the race but it’s significant.
Teachers Union Pushed Barrera to Runoff in Statewide Race
The race for State Superintendent of Public Instruction became something of a flex test for the state’s largest teachers union. Could the California Teachers Association almost singlehandedly lift a relatively unknown San Diego board member over a bevvy of better financed, higher profile candidates? Yup. Easily.
Fueled by nearly $5 million in spending from the state’s largest teachers union, longtime San Diego Unified Trustee and labor-darling Richard Barrera sailed to a convincing second place finish in the race for state supe. In his nearly two decades as the power behind the throne of the second largest district in the state, Barrera has engineered a progressive labor friendly transformation that the union hopes can be taken statewide.
He will now face off against Republican Chino Valley Trustee Sonja Shaw in November.
Brews and News + Your Chance to Win Padres Tickets
Meet our team and get an election debrief at our Brews & News Live Podcast at Soda Bar on Thursday, June 11. We will be joined by San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera. Get your tickets here and you’ll be automatically entered to win two tickets to a Padres game. Winners will be announced at the event.
Obligatory note: No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the Brews and News Live Podcast Giveaway. A ticket purchase or donation will not increase chances of winning. All applicable federal, state, local and municipal laws, rules, and regulations apply. Void where prohibited by law.
In Other News
- Opinion: A retired lifeguard finds irony in SDG&E’s stance on residents putting solar panels on their balconies. The company once argued against rooftop solar because it was unfair to renters, but now, he writes, “a low-cost system allows most of those same people access to solar, but SDG&E seeks to deny them as well.” (ICYMI: Our MacKenzie Elmer wrote that plugging in such a device could put her at risk of getting her power cut.)
- San Diego County officials warned South Bay residents to limit their exposure to the outdoors after a broken pipe spilled millions of gallons of sewage into the Tijuana River. (Union-Tribune)
- NBC 7 reports that a judge ruled that the city of San Diego illegally collected parking ticket late fees for three years.
- About that cross-border tunnel: The U.S. Attorney’s office says a recently discovered, massive tunnel stretching from Tijuana to Otay Mesa leads to a fake store in the southern San Diego neighborhood. Four people have been charged in connection with drug trafficking linked to the tunnel.
The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney, Mariana Martínez Barba and Will Huntsberry. It was edited by Will Huntsberry, Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña and Scott Lewis.
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