Fun Facts From the Friars’ Flawless First Week

On Friday, April 4, the good times finally stopped rolling. The Padres lost their first game in Chicago and their first game of the 2025 season, putting an end to the seven-game winning streak that kicked off the season. In order to commemorate all the fun we had during that glorious week of furious winning, I’ve combed through the stats and pulled out my favorites. How do you kick off your season with four games against one of the best teams in baseball, three games against another playoff team, and still manage to win your first seven? You need to be good and you need to be lucky, and the Padres were both. Let’s dig into it.

On each team’s schedule page at FanGraphs, the win probability is listed. I don’t know exactly how this number is calculated, but over the Padres’ winning streak, their lowest win probability was 44.7% and highest was 63.4%. That included an Opening Day win against reigning National League Cy Young winner Chris Sale. If you combine all those win probabilities, you’ll find that the chance of the Padres winning all seven of them was 1.3%. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s low.

Here’s a fluky one that helps explain why the Padres were able to make such an improbable run. Through April 2, the Padres ran a league-best 92.5% strand rate. Strand rate is a pitcher’s best friend. Over the long-term nobody manages to be magically better at pitching when runners are on base. But over the short-term, stranding a bunch of runners is the best way to look like a golden god. That’s not to say that the Padres only got lucky. They ran a 1.57 ERA over that period, best in baseball by a huge margin, and their 3.07 FIP ranked third-best.

You know how you rack up a great FIP? You strike out a lot of batters. The only team with more strikeouts than the Padres’ 69 was the Dodgers, who had an extra game under their belts thanks to the Tokyo Series. Statcast also loved the San Diego pitching staff. Through April 2, their .234 wOBA and .264 xwOBA were both the best in baseball.

Through April 2, San Diego’s 15.9% strikeout rate was the lowest in baseball. Only one other team was even below 18.5%. Amazingly, that was the only major stat I could find in which the Padres offense led the league. How were the Padres able to avoid the strikeout so well? It helps that their 22.2% whiff rate was tied with the Cardinals for the best in baseball.  The Padres still have the lowest strikeout rate in baseball right now, but it’s up to 17.1%.

Over that period, three different Padres had a batting average of .400 or better. Fernando Tatis Jr. was at .423, Jackson Merrill was at .417, and Manny Machado was at an even 400. Amazingly, Luis Arráez was batting just .148 at that point, but because he’s Luis Arráez, he had yet to strike out. Just three games later, his batting average would be up more than 100 points, because, once again, he’s Luis Arráez.

Let’s close with a really fun one. Until this season, no Padres team had ever won more than four games in a row to start the season. The Padres became just the 30th AL/NL team since 1901 to win their first seven games. Of course, they weren’t alone. The Dodgers won their first seven game too, starting in Tokyo. The really fun thing is that of the 28 teams that had achieved this feat in previous years, 13 made the playoffs, seven made it to the World Series, and five won it all. In other words, 17.9% of teams that started out with a seven-game win streak went on to win the World Series. I’d take those odds.