The Padres are a fascinating, jumbled puzzle of pros and cons. They’re a nine-inning (or more) roller-coaster in the dawn hours of perhaps the most interesting season of their half-century of existence.
How to sort it all, the cheers and jeers, the promise and base-running pain? The baseball glass is a continuing exercise in half-full versus half-empty perspective.
Half full: The Padres entered Saturday over .500, ahead of all but the Dodgers in the NL West.
Half empty: Entering Saturday, they’d lost five straight — tied for the worst current skid in the majors.