The Padres arrived in Chicago last year in first place in the National League West and got swept.

They departed Chicago yesterday having swept four games and taken over first place.

There will not be such conclusions made in this space for at least a couple months. Or do you not remember last year?

Refresher: The Padres were never again atop the West, though they appeared to be a certain wild card entrant right through late August. But they suffered one of the worst collapses in major league history. Their 12-34 closing mark was the fourth worst ever by a team over .500 with 46 games remaining.

All that can be said at this point is this year’s Padres are doing what they said they would — chiefly, starting to hit as the weather improved and continuing to get generally solid pitching.

A team following through on its predictions is generally a good sign it can be trusted.

Read about yesterday’s 6-4 victory over the Cubs in my game story (here), which focuses largely on another gem by Joe Musgrove.

The victory moved the Padres to 17 games above .500, a mark they reached once in 2021 — on Aug. 10, when they had 46 games to play.

Jurickson Profar’s ability to see the ball and get a bat on it is a rarity, even in the major leagues.

Just 11 players chase fewer pitches outside the strike zone and make more contact when they swing than Profar, who rank 38th in MLB with a 28.1 percent chase rate and 32nd with an 82.9 percent contact rate.

The significant thing now is he appears to be melding the two traits better than he ever has, batting .253/.349/.436 after going 1-for-4 with a home run and a walk yesterday.

“It’s good, and sometimes it’s bad,” Profar said of his ability to make contact. “Even pitches that sometimes that are not good, I swing. … This year I really work on that. Years before, I swing at a pitch outside of the zone and still put it in play. But I don’t put it in play the way I am supposed to. It’s soft contact. So this year, I’ve been focusing more on pitches in my zone that I can do damage on and put my swing on it. And it’s been helping a lot this year.”

Profar’s average exit velocity of 87.6 mph is the highest of his career, more than 2 mph harder than last season. His barrel percentage (5.1) is almost twice what it was the past two seasons. Both numbers are still slightly below MLB averages. But then, his on-base percentage is 38 points higher than the MLB average. He has also put 36 balls in play at 100 mph or harder in 241 at-bats, just seven fewer than he did in 352 at-bats last season.

“Just (becoming more) mature and knowing what I can do and believe in what I can do too,” Profar explained of the evolution in his ninth major league season.

You don’t see this very often. Eric Hosmer never had before it happened to him in the second inning yesterday.

hosmer caught a bad break 😱 pic.twitter.com/JKPx7ePkTJ

“I’m pretty sure I broke it (Wednesday),” he said. “But I used it in the cage, I used it off the machine. It was good. So I guess maybe the last one I took on the machine must have been the one that broke it, and then I took it to the game and — snap.”

Not since the Padres walked/ran off the field prior to the tornado warning in Chicago on Monday night have they taken on-field batting practice.

“It’s not worth it,” Luke Voit said.

He meant because of the mid- to upper-90s heat and energy-sapping humidity levels.

It will be a different kind heat the Padres experience in Denver the next three days. The forecast calls for temperatures in the 90s, but it will be much drier in the thin air a mile high.

Perhaps they should forego batting practice until they stop hitting. Over the past three days, the Padres have hit .379 with 13 doubles, a triple and seven home runs. They had not hit for that high an average nor had that many extra-base hits in any three-game stretch this season. (Shout out to Cubs pitching, too.)

Hosmer said the Royals went two months one summer without taking batting practice at home due to the oppressive humidity in Kansas City.

Jake Cronenworth, who grew up in Michigan, was 10-for-17, reached base 14 times in 23 plate appearances, scored five runs and drove in four in the series. That doesn’t mean he was comfortable doing it. Like many Southern California transplants, he has grown accustomed to living in nearly constant room temperature.

“I do not like the humidity,” he said. “I like San Diego’s weather much better.”

All right, that’s it for me.

Go deeper inside the Padres

Get our free Padres Daily newsletter, free to your inbox every day of the season.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Privacy Policy Terms of Service Sign Up For Our Newsletters