2022 San Diego Padres regular season recap

Let's relive the rollercoaster season that was for the 2022 San Diego Padres.

The season is over. The San Diego Padres finished 89-73, their best record in 15 years.

Tomorrow, I’ll do a preview of their playoff series against the New York Mets. Today, I’m going to try and remember all of the different crazy storylines that we, as Padres fans, had to endure over the last 9 months.

Lockout

Remember the lockout? We had no idea if this season was even going to happen. Once an agreement was set, we were all so worried about what a quick ramp-up would mean for pitcher injuries. Turns out, the lockout ended up not really affecting this season much at all. Oh, except for…

Tatis’ broken wrist and surgery

This is how things started. Tatis got into a motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic during the lockout/offseason. He denied it, as did his father, until he couldn’t anymore. Eventually, he said that he had some bruises but nothing major.

When Tatis reported to spring training, the Padres doctors took one look at his wrist and knew what happened. He had broken his wrist and, without proper medical attention, it had healed improperly. The team immediately announced that he would have surgery on the wrist and would likely miss half the season.

A new position, and a corresponding trade

While we got news of Tatis’ wrist surgery, there was also the news that the Designated Hitter was coming to the National League. Great news for those who were sick and tired of watching pitchers hit. Bad news for a team that didn’t have any good DH options and had just lost their best power bat for the first half of the year.

The Padres were lucky enough to find a pretty good DH that the Yankees no longer needed or wanted in Luke Voit and traded for him. He would be asked, somewhat unrealistically, to fill some of the power gap left behind by Tatis’ absence.