Padres All-Star Infielder Believes Team is 'On Same Page' Following First Home Series

Maren Angus-Coombs | Apr 3, 2024

San Diego Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill (right) and second baseman Xander Bogaerts (left) are among the players focused on their internal goals in the 2024 season. / Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

The San Diego Padres are playing for something more than just themselves this season. They have mourned the passing of chairman Peter Seidler. On Tuesday, news broke of their former team president Larry Lucchino’s passing.

With a 3-5 record, the Padres are starting to figure things out. All the pieces are there for them to make a strong case for a postseason berth. All-Star infielder Xander Bogaerts is confident that the team is working to achieve the same goal.

“A different year,” Bogaerts said. “Every year of my career has been different, so I guess as a team it’s one of those things that it’s a new year, you know. We’re all engaged. We’re all on the same page.”

Working on the same page has been on display in the losses and the wins. On Saturday night, the Padres rallied to score in five in the bottom of the ninth. They lost, but the late-inning performance was promising and it carried over into the first inning of Sunday’s game when they scored five more.

“I think the thing that carries over the most is the consistency and the quality of the at-bat,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “If we are always going to compete and take everything that we can and every situation’s a situation, not give anything away, you’re going to keep momentum longer. And that’s how you put together seasons individually and a good team does that, puts together a good season as a team collectively.”

The Padres will get another look at the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series starting April 12, a useful measuring tool to see how they stack up against the division favorites. They will face the defending National League pennant-winning Arizona Diamondbacks next month.

Regardless of who they are playing, the Padres are seven games into their season and are happy with how they have played in general. 

“There’s a lot of talk about the Dodgers' and Giants' offseason, the Diamondbacks' offseason,” rookie center fielder Jackson Merrill said. “Nobody really talks about us. So we kind of like it that way. We kind of want to leave it that way. We’re going to play our game the whole year. And then when it’s time to actually talk about something, I think that’s what we’ll be talking about.”