Although many experts picked San Diego to finish last in its division, the Padres brushed off the predictions like an annoying piece of lint on their jerseys in the first week of the season. The Padres finished their opening week with a four-game winning streak and now sport a 6-2 record, putting them in first place in the National League West. They split a four-game series with the defending division champion Los Angeles Dodgers before sweeping the San Francisco Giants at Petco Park. “We\u2019ve got a lot of energy,” said Adrian Gonzalez, who homered in the Padres 4-2 win over the Dodgers, their first of the season. “We\u2019re a young team, and usually young teams feed off energy. Everybody\u2019s confident. We\u2019re not intimidated by anybody and we really feel like we can compete in this division and we know we can win here.” The Padres are coming off a disappointing 63-99 season last year, their worst in 15 years. Things are different, though, including new closer Heath Bell, who replaced all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman. David Eckstein was acquired from St. Louis to play second base, and shortstop Khalil Greene was shipped to the Cardinals. Last week, Tom Garfinkel was hired as the team\u2019s new president and COO after resigning his post with Arizona. He\u2019ll oversee all non-baseball operations. But it\u2019s what you do on the field that matters, and so far, the Padres have opened some eyes. Bell ringer: It didn\u2019t take long for Heath Bell to get comfortable in the closer\u2019s role. Bell struck out the side in the Padres 4-2 win over the Dodgers last week. “It felt like I was running on air when I jogged in because the crowd went nuts,” Bell said of his entrance, which included music just for him. “That\u2019s probably what Hoffy felt like all the time. I didn\u2019t think they were going to be that loud for me when I was just jogging out, so that was pretty cool to have the fans all behind me.” Bell added his second save in the 4-3 victory over L.A. in the series finale, then notched his third in Saturday\u2019s win over the Giants. Young puts bad spring behind him: Chris Young had a miserable 12.96 ERA in spring training but has been a much different pitcher at the start of the season. He is 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA in 13 innings. Young gave up four hits with seven strikeouts and no walks in Sunday\u2019s 6-1 victory over San Francisco. He is 5-1 in his last six starts dating to last season. “A lot of people out there don\u2019t have high expectations for us,” Young said. “It is a long season. We\u2019ll temper the excitement. But I think it is good for us to get some confidence and really believe in ourselves.” Other Padre notables:<\/b> \u2022Chase Headley hit a two-run double in the sixth inning to give the Padres a 3-2 lead in their 4-2 win over the Dodgers in the opening week. He also slugged a two-run homer for a 3-0 advantage in the second inning of Sunday\u2019s 6-1 victory. \u2022Gonzalez ripped a three-run double in the fifth on Sunday. \u2022Scott Hairston drove in three runs with his home run in the eighth inning of a 7-2 triumph over the Giants last Friday. \u2022Jake Peavy fanned 10 batters in 8 1\/3 innings in the Padres 6-3 win on Saturday. He got help from Henry Blanco, who slugged two homers. MLB notebook:<\/b> New York Mets pitcher Johan Santana had made 18 straight starts without a loss until Sunday\u2019s 2-1 defeat to Florida\u2026Washington was the majors only winless team after the first week at 0-6\u2026Boston Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury had played 179 straight games without an error at the start of this week\u2026Alex Rodriquez continues his rehabilitation from from right hip surgery this week at the New York Yankees spring training facility in Tampa\u2026The Pittsburgh Pirates pulled off their first triple play since Aug. 10, 1993 on Sunday when shortstop Jack Wilson caught a blooper and doubled runners at second and first.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although many experts picked San Diego to finish last in its division, the Padres brushed off the predictions like an annoying piece of lint on their jerseys in the first week of the season. The Padres finished their opening week with a four-game winning streak and now sport a 6-2 record, putting them in first […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Padres crack a good start","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11593,11553,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-no-images","category-sports","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}