First baseman Adrian Gonzalez is ripping the baseball so far this season.  Gonzalez has played in 21 games so far this season and he’s 28 for 89 (.315 avg, .947 OPS) with 12 runs scored, 6 homers and 20 RBIs!  Gonzalez also is an outstanding defensive player for the Padres as he’s quickly emerging as the best player on the team.

With Kevin Koumanoff struggling it has opened up playing time for Russell Branyan and Geoff Blum.  But Blum hasn’t done much with the playing time he has received.  In 14 games this season Blum is only 2 for 23 (.087 avg, .328 OPS) with 2 RBIs.  If he doesn’t start to hit soon his playing time will likely be cut down a little bit.

The Padres were 4-3 last week as they outscored their opponents 41-34.  The Padres bats started to wake up and that’s why they had a good week, because their pitching should be pretty good all year long.  The Padres are currently in 2nd place in the National League West, 2 games behind the LA Dodgers.

The Padres expected big things from Kevin Kouzmanoff after trading Josh Barfield to get him in the off season.  If 12 games so far this season, Kouzmanoff is only hitting .146 with a .466 OPS.  He’s only 6 for 41 this season with 1 run scored, 1 homer and 3 RBIs.  If he doesn’t start to hit soon he will probably get sent down to the minors.

The Padres went 3-3 last week despite getting outscored 26-21.  The Padres are likely to have trouble all season long scoring runs because they really don’t have that many good hitters on their team.  Still, they are in third place in the NL West with a 7-5 record, 1.5 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks.