The Loop
The San Diego Padres put on a bat-flip clinic on Thursday night
Good news, baseball. The daddies are still in this thing. On Thursday, the San Slam Diego Padres staved off NL Wild Card elimination the only way they knew how: By putting up JACKS. Scoring 11 runs on the back of five homers—two from wunderkid Fernando Tatis Jr., two from longest-tenured Friar Wil Myers, and one from $300-million-dollar man Manny Machado—the Padres lived up to their lovable nickname in a do-or-die postseason situation. But as has been the case all season long, it’s not just what the Padres did, but how they did it, garnishing each dinger with a bat flip to rival Joey Bats’ balliest. The hypetrain just jumped the freakin’ tracks.
Man, when the Padres get hot, it’s like 'MLB Slugfest' out there. Remember 'MLB Slugfest'? Because you should. You, really, really should.
Anyway, some people are going to hate this, and that’s exactly what makes it so great. Nothing good—Judas Preist, beer bongs, Sean Taylor crushing a punter in the Pro Bowl, Bryson DeChambeau swinging out of his Pumas—was ever created by a bunch of guys in khakis sitting around hand-wringing over whether or not Harry Potter should be read in public schools. These are the same losers who spent 12 full hours of their lives tisk-tisking El Nino for swinging on 3-0 and hitting a grand slam earlier this season. Last time we checked, the point of baseball is scoring more runs than the other team? Did we miss a memo or something?
Thankfully scoring isn’t the Padres problem. Being down two aces heading into the third game of their NL Wild Card series with the Cardinals is. It remains to be seen whether or not those ever-flipping bats will be enough to carry them into the NLDS, but if not, well, at least we’ll always have Paris Petco.