‘How do we get better?’ How Padres’ October disappointment inspired 2025 success
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Buster Olney
Last October, the San Diego Padres came within one game of knocking the Los Angeles Dodgers out of the playoffs early — one game. San Diego manager Mike Shildt thinks of that division series race often, but not with regret, or bitterness, or frustration; he is not fixated on crossroad moments in the losses in the final two games of the best-of-five series.
What is embedded in Shildt’s memory, he recalled in a conversation earlier this week, is how the Padres players responded in Game 2, when fans pitched garbage at them at Dodger Stadium. They supported each other, Shildt said; they lifted one another, with third baseman Manny Machado gathering the players in the dugout to address the chaos. “In a huge moment, a riotous atmosphere, our group got even closer together,” Shildt said, “and we played even better.”
In that moment and throughout the series, the Padres demonstrated they can thrive in the biggest moments on the biggest stage, and after Los Angeles went on to win the World Series, manager Dave Roberts and some Dodger players acknowledged that San Diego was the best team they faced in the playoffs. This year, the Padres are back and better than ever, and Machado and others have credited that near-miss of last October for helping launch the Padres into this season with an even greater confidence and more swag. On the backs of baseball’s best bullpen and the best version of Fernando Tatis Jr. that we’ve ever seen, the Padres have started 15-4, allowing only 51 runs, dominating despite an early wave of injuries that sidelined center fielder Jackson Merrill and second baseman Jake Cronenworth.
“It speaks to the depth,” Shildt told reporters after the series win earlier this week against the Chicago Cubs. “It speaks to the mentality of the team. It’s never going to be a straight line. … It’s how you handle the deviations.”
“It’s just the whole group approach,” Tatis said. “Everybody feeds off each other.”
This will be a must, apparently, in the NL West, the division that the Padres GM A.J. Preller noted is like the SEC of the big leagues this year; the NL West’s fourth-place team, the Diamondbacks, went into the weekend tied for baseball’s fourth-best record.
After the series loss to the Dodgers, Preller said, the conversations were forward-thinking. “We focused on — ‘now go and get better,'” he said. “We weren’t good enough. And this was the message from Shildt in spring training: ‘How do we get better?'”
For Tatis, this meant moving to the leadoff spot, where his speed and power could immediately impact opponents, while affecting simplifying changes in his stance and his approach. Before this season, Tatis averaged about 2½ strikeouts for every walk; in 2021, when he finished third in the MVP race, he compiled 153 strikeouts and 62 walks. So far this year, that ratio has dramatically shifted: He has nine strikeouts and 10 free passes, including a bases-loaded walk drawn against the Cubs in a key moment Wednesday.
With the Padres leading 3-2 in the eighth inning and the count full, Tatis started to swing at a sweeping breaking ball from Luke Little — but under control, Tatis checked his swing as the ball swerved out of the strike zone. Tatis flipped the bat nonchalantly as he started to walk toward first, the crowd around him roaring for the insurance run.
There are hitters who simply don’t have the ability to recognize pitches that will end up out of the zone, Preller said, but Tatis can — and he has made the decision to be more patient at the plate, to be more discerning. “He is so talented — he can do anything,” Preller said.
“He is such a talent, and this guy is exceptionally smart,” Shildt said. “He has an ability to evolve and see the game … He is learning how to channel his aggression.” Tatis’ early-season on-base percentage of .425 is nearly 60 points higher than his career high. When pitches are thrown in the zone to him, his contact rate is 79.9%, a best-ever for him, and he’s doing damage, with six homers and 16 runs.
The question of how to help the Padres get better was a little more complicated for Preller, working within the context of organizational change. Sheel Seidler, the widow of the late San Diego owner Peter Seidler, filed a lawsuit against Seidler’s brothers, Matthew and Robert, with possible control of the team at stake. Preller is typically among the most proactive general managers in baseball, but amid the fight at the ownership level, the Padres did very little early in the offseason.
Preller weighed interest in starting pitchers Dylan Cease and Michael King, as well as closer Robert Suarez and first baseman, as he weighed alternatives in how to best use his allotted resources. The Padres’ payroll had been $291.2 million in 2023, then cut to $227.8 million in 2024, and choices had to be made for 2025. The Padres signed Nick Pivetta to a backloaded contract that pays the right-hander $1 million in salary this year, plus around a $3 million signing bonus. And Preller inked infielders Gavin Sheets ($1.6 million) and Jose Iglesias ($3 million), as well as outfielders Jason Heyward and Connor Joe for barely above the minimum salary.
Those financial choices with the rotation and the position-player group enabled Preller to mostly keep the team’s bullpen intact from last year, other than the departure of free agent Tanner Scott.
“The Dodgers have a bullpen full of closers,” one rival evaluator said. “But the Padres’ bullpen might be better.” That is empirically accurate so far this season. The Padres’ relievers have combined for a 1.52 ERA, allowing only 41 hits in 71 innings.
Preller remembers what Kyle Higashioka, a catcher with the Padres last October, had said about the San Diego-L.A. Division Series — whoever wins that series, Higashioka had predicted, would win the World Series. “This is the best team I’ve been on,” Higashioka told his GM.
There are a lot of players in the Padres’ clubhouse with a lot of winning in their respective careers who felt the same way, Preller believed. The early-season results this year suggest San Diego is a great team again, aiming to get back to where they were last October, and beyond.
Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava officially announced his transfer to UCLA via a social media post Sunday.
“My journey at UT has come to an end,” he wrote on Instagram. “This decision was incredibly difficult, and truthfully, not something I expected to make this soon. But I trust God’s timing, and I believe He’s leading me where I need to be.
“Even though this chapter is ending, a new chapter has begun and I am committed to UCLA!”
Iamaleava was a highly regarded recruit who led Tennessee to the College Football Playoff last season. He was No. 1 in ESPN’s transfer portal rankings and immediately gives UCLA one of the best-known players in the sport upon his arrival. The Bruins are coming off a 5-7 debut season by coach DeShaun Foster.
Iamaleava, a five-star prospect from Long Beach, California, was recruited by UCLA out of high school. His younger brother, Madden Iamaleava, committed to UCLA out of high school but changed his commitment on the morning of signing day and signed with Arkansas.
Those recruitments gave both sides plenty of familiarity and the ability to potentially move quickly.
Iamaleava passed for 2,616 yards, 19 touchdowns and 5 interceptions in his first season as a starter, but in nine games against SEC opponents and Ohio State in the playoff, he threw for more than 200 yards only twice.
Tennessee’s offense finished No. 9 in the conference in scoring with 25.0 points per game in SEC play. The Volunteers’ offense was No. 1 in rushing and No. 11 in passing in league play.
UCLA is coming off a season in which it finished No. 14 in scoring offense and No. 12 in total offense in Big Ten play.
Iamaleava was earning $2.4 million at Tennessee under the contract he signed with Spyre Sports Group, the Tennessee-based collective, when he was still in high school. The deal would have paid him in the $10 million range altogether had he stayed four years at Tennessee.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel announced last week after the Volunteers’ spring game that the program was moving forward without Iamaleava after he missed practice and meetings April 11. He hadn’t alerted anyone on the team and was unresponsive afterward.
Heupel thanked Iamaleava and called the situation unfortunate, but added, “There’s no one bigger than the Power T, and that includes me.”
Iamaleava, a rising redshirt sophomore, officially entered the transfer portal Wednesday with a do-not-contact tag.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel contributed to this report.
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Kristen Shilton
The New Jersey Devils‘ injury woes may have reached alarming new heights.
Defenseman Brenden Dillon and forward Cody Glass exited during the second and third periods, respectively, in Game 1 of the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday, a 4-1 loss for New Jersey. The Devils were also briefly without defenseman Luke Hughes, who left in the third period but was able to return.
New Jersey entered the postseason already undermanned. Top forward Jack Hughes, Luke’s brother, had season-ending shoulder surgery in March, and defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler is also not expected to be available in the first round.
Coach Sheldon Keefe remained optimistic though about one of the team’s latest injured bodies.
“(Dillon) was eager to get back out there,” Keefe said by way of an update. Doctors ultimately held Dillon out for “precautionary reasons.”
The veteran blueliner was taken to the ice by Carolina forward William Carrier battling in front of the Devils’ net. He remained down for several minutes before being helped off by New Jersey’s training staff.
It was a disastrous third period sequence that shortened New Jersey’s bench further. Hughes went flying into the Devils’ net after tripping over Hurricanes’ forward Andrei Svechnikov, and ran off the ice cradling his right arm. Then, Devils’ goaltender Jacob Markstrom accidentally clipped Glass with his stick while appearing to aim for Svechnikov. Glass left and did not return while Hughes finished the game.
New Jersey will have to wait and see who is available when they take on Carolina in Game 2 on Tuesday. For now, Keefe won’t let the Devils dwell on what they can’t control.
“To a man, myself included,” he said, “we’re all going to have to be better.”
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