MLB '05 Recap: San Diego Padres

This is Part 7 of a 30-part series of team-by-team analyses of
the 2005 MLB season. Bookmark http://www.futonreport.net for the upcoming schedule as well as all past reports.

The 2005 Padres will be remembered as a little team that, with some success and a series of peaks and valleys, won an injury-laden division and got no respect doing so.

And 82-80 record is not special. Maybe it's the low-IQ kind of special but certainly nothing worth touting them as good as dominant as the other five division winners.

Yeah yeah, San Diego would have finished fourth had they been in the National League East. They would have only beaten .500 teams Washington and/or Milwaukee by a single game had they been in the same division.

But here's the thing — they weren't in the same division. San Diego won a brutal, albeit weak, division. They didn't even have the best record in their division — that "feat" belonging to the Diamondbacks. They had the best out-of-division record, including a winning record against NL East teams and specifically the Braves. That was more than enough to seal the division.

Their primary Achilles' heel was consistency on offense. They didn't help their cause by shipping fan favorite Phil Nevin to the Rangers for a pitcher (Chan Ho Park), but they did acquire base-knocker Joe Randa from the Reds to replace a struggling Sean Burroughs. In the end, they finished in the last quartile in the NL in homers, slugging runs scored and dead last in extra-base hits.

Their pitching was very middle-of the road, finishing 7th (out of 16) in ERA (4.13). Their dominant ace was lone All-Star Jake Peavy (13-7, 2.88 ERA), who had arguably the best complete pitching season in Padres history since Padre legend Randy Jones' 1976 Cy Young campaign. While the wins weren't there, he did have the league's most strikeouts (216), fourth in WHIP (1.04), third in complete game shutouts (3rd with 3) and sixth in ERA (2.88).

Article Author: Matthew T. Sussman

Sussman is the sports editor of BC Magazine and the executive editor of Technorati. He also writes for Deadspin and Toledo Free Press. He and Tuffy can be heard hosting the Treehouse Fort, Sundays at 12 noon ET. Plus, he Twitters. …

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