Winning trip through Atlanta and NY: 'That's a good sign'

NEW YORK -- The Padres will chalk it up as a successful road trip, no matter the ending.

They spent the past week playing games in two hostile environments against two teams that won 100-plus games last season. They’ll take 4-3.

“The last game, we wanted to win it,” said Juan Soto after San Diego had dropped Wednesday’s finale against the Mets, 5-2, at Citi Field. “But it is what it is. At the end of the day, you look at what we did -- we played against two of the best teams in the NL and we won four out of seven. That’s a good sign.”

Some takeaways from the Padres’ jaunt through Atlanta and New York:

Soto’s bat is starting to wake up
Soto opened the scoring on Wednesday with a titanic Statcast-projected 453-foot blast that landed on the Citi Field bridge beyond the right-center-field wall. It gave the Padres a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

To lead off the sixth, Soto hit a laser double. In the seventh, he got under a David Robertson curveball, just missing a potential go-ahead three-run homer. Point being: Soto is starting to look awfully dangerous -- like the MVP-caliber version of himself.

The Padres haven’t exactly seen that version of Soto yet. By his own (very lofty) standards, Soto struggled down the stretch in 2022. He opened the season in a funk as well. Recently, he was asked whether he’d been opening his front hip too soon, getting a bit too pull-happy.

“Everybody’s talking about what I’m doing wrong,” Soto said. “Nobody’s telling me what I’m doing to fix it. I can tell that they’ve been seeing it. I see it every day. I’m pulling myself this way. I’m trying to find a way how to fix it.”

If he has fixed it -- and his recent swings indicate he might have -- NL pitchers, beware.

What's next at catcher?
Luis Campusano is making a loud case for more playing time. That's partly because of his bat -- he notched a career-high three hits on Tuesday, while Austin Nola has three hits across nine games this season.

But the Padres probably already knew Campusano would bring the better bat to the catching competition. They weren't as certain about his work behind the plate. Clearly, Campusano has made major strides in that department, and San Diego is now 4-0 when he starts.

Thus far, the split has been two-thirds Nola, one-third Campusano. It sure sounds like that balance might be shifting.

“We might do things a little bit differently,” said manager Bob Melvin. “[Nola] had a really good spring swinging the bat, then had the [broken nose] and has not swung it as well since. … We’ll see how it breaks up as we go forward.”

The DH platoon is working how it’s supposed to
Padres designated hitters on the road trip: 9-for-26 (.346) with two homers, two doubles and four walks

Yep, that’ll work.

Nelson Cruz is torching left-handed pitching. Matt Carpenter has done a nice job against righties. And when an infielder needs a day off his feet, Carpenter can slide to first base, and the Padres can reshuffle their infield -- as they did Saturday by starting Xander Bogaerts at DH.

Cruz, in particular, is off to a scorching start. He tacked on a pinch-hit single on Wednesday, and he has a .986 OPS in seven games. Melvin was recently asked whether that performance might earn Cruz more playing time. He demurred.

Thus far, the balance is working just fine, Melvin said. Why mess with that? The Padres are getting the matchups they want, andm aking the most of them.

One week until Tatis …
Even against a brutal April schedule, the Padres have survived without Fernando Tatis Jr. They’re a game above .500 at 7-6 and still haven’t hit their stride offensively.

They’ve now weathered two-thirds of Tatis’ 20-game absence this year as he serves the remainder of his PED suspension. With this road trip in the books -- stunningly, without any rainouts, despite a once-ominous forecast -- it’s now safe to pencil in Tatis’ return for April 20.

Melvin did his best to downplay expectations surrounding Tatis’ return. It has been 18 months (and three surgeries) since he last played for the Padres, after all. Then again, Tatis raked in the second half of Spring Training, after shaking off some early rust. Entering play Wednesday, Tatis was hitting .353 with a 1.110 OPS on his rehab stint with Triple-A El Paso.

“Based on what we saw in Spring Training and who he is, there’s obviously a high expectation level,” Melvin said. “But you do have to temper it, knowing that he basically hasn’t played in a year and a half. He’s getting his games in now.”

Then Melvin added the caveat:

“He is also a very special talent. So nothing would surprise me.”