For the second straight month, the Padres found themselves treading water. The Friars followed a 14-12 June with a 13-13 July. Not great, but when you consider that this club was 18-35 over those two months in 2005, it’s hard to complain.

Hit Me with Your Best Shot

A closer look at July 2006 versus July 2005 reveals exactly where the improvements were made. In a word: hitting.

July 2006 vs July 2005, Hitting

Year	BA	OBP	SLG	ISO	SEC	AB/HR	RC/27	R/G
2006	.290	.356	.482	.192	.314	27.0	6.06	5.31
2005	.239	.317	.355	.116	.236	57.1	3.77	3.38
Stats courtesy of ESPN.

The Padres scored nearly two runs more per game this July than last. They obliterated last year’s totals in every category.

The Pads hit 35 homers this month. If that doesn’t impress you, it should — it’s easily their high-water mark in a month since moving to Petco Park in 2004.

And if that still doesn’t impress you, maybe this will: Mike Cameron, Adrian Gonzalez, and Jake Peavy combined to hit more home runs in July 2006 than the entire team did in July 2005. Plus, you’ve got to like these trends, which we first looked at last month:

We’ve already noted the success of Gonzalez, Josh Barfield, and Khalil Greene since Merv Rettenmund returned as hitting coach. July also saw standout performances from Cameron, Josh Bard, and Mike Piazza. In fact, aside from Brian Giles (give him a mulligan since he’s the only guy who did anything last July) and the Hot Corner of Doom™ (which managed to lower its season OPS despite entering the month at a pitiful 607), just about everyone contributed on offense.

Make It a Double

Chicks may dig the long ball, but doubles can be plenty effective as well. The Padres outdoubled their opponents in July, 63-50, marking the third consecutive month in which they’d done so. For the season, the Pads have outdoubled their opponents, 199-178.

Big deal, right? As longtime reader Bill Robens notes:

Last year, about this time, the Padres were getting mauled by our opponents in doubles. So mauled, I wrote you about it. On July 1, 2005, we’d been outdoubled at home by 30 — or 3 doubles every 4 games. A HUGE disparity. And it seemed to confirm all of our worst fears: that our poor outfield defense was killing the team.

Poor outfield defense was a big problem in 2005. The Padres still are getting outdoubled at home, but this season it’s at a rate of one per every five games, which is much more reasonable.

But defense doesn’t tell the whole story. The other half of the equation is that hitting for power was a problem in 2005. This year? The Padres already have a guy with 19 homers, which they couldn’t say last season. And before too long, it’s likely that three others will pass that mark.

Enough about the homers; we’re looking at doubles now:

Doubles per Game, 2006 vs 2005

	2006	2005
Padres	1.90	1.66
Opponents	1.70	1.96

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a +0.20 differential this year versus a -0.30 differential last year. This effectively means that every other game, you can add a double for the Padres or take one away from the opposition compared to last year. Over the course of the season, that’s going to make a difference.

Okay, so we get that the Padres hit well in July. Therefore the reason for their .500 record during the month must lie elsewhere. [Cue sound of Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff.]

Pitching, Anyone?

It’s a rhetorical question, but I’ll answer it anyway: No. Only relievers Jon Adkins (1.32 ERA in 13.2 IP) and Cla Meredith (1.88 ERA in 14.1 IP) had an ERA below 4.00 in July. Among starters, only Woody Williams (4.30 ERA in 29.1 IP) and Mike Thompson (4.42 ERA in 18.1 IP) had an ERA below 5.00. Everyone else was pretty much a disaster.

Many of the names have changed, but the pitching this July was basically a carbon copy of last July, when it was dismal:

July 2006 vs July 2005, Pitching

Year	ERA	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9
2006	5.17	1.47	10.19	1.33	3.08	6.16
2005	5.19	1.50	10.06	1.34	3.42	6.72
Stats courtesy of ESPN.

So, the big difference was in the fact that the hitters bailed out the pitchers this year. I guess we can thank Rettenmund for that. Or Bard, Barfield, Cameron, Gonzalez, and Greene. Would you believe, all of the above?

Not the pitchers, anyway. Except for Peavy, who hit two home runs during the month. Did you know that he had 6 RBI in July? Fellow moundsmen Woody Williams, Chan Ho Park, and Chris Young each drove in a run during the month, giving Padres pitchers a total of 9 RBI.

Punch line: That’s one more RBI than Padres third basemen accounted for in 2 1/2 times as many at-bats. Not that anyone is desparate, but I think I’d settle for Ed Sprague at this point. Or even Peter Sprague.

What Next?

Last month we identified keeping Dave Roberts and Woody Williams healthy as priorities. Both stayed healthy and made solid contributions. Unfortunately they weren’t enough to overcome a lot of bad pitching.

The club obviously could use help at third base (in the sense that I could use help getting to the moon), but with most of the available options being snatched up already, it’s difficult to maintain optimism on that front. Anything is possible, of course, and teams aren’t as wary of making waiver deals as they once were, but I’m not holding my breath.

Even though something really stinks.

The good news is that, thanks to an increasingly indifferent NL West, the Padres didn’t lose any ground in July. Once again, this isn’t going to be a pretty stretch run by anyone’s standards.

But as much as I appreciate aesthetics, I appreciate winning even more. As we said last season, someone’s got to win the division and it might as well be the Padres.