The Padres Slam Rangers Again and It is Glorious

This might just become a daily Padres appreciation moment. It’s not our fault. Sometimes what will be will be and you can’t run from what has to be. The Padres decided it would be fun to hit a grand slam off the Rangers for a third straight game, but to turn it from just a pint of ice cream into a sundae, this one was a walk-off version from Manny Machado.

Maybe it’s just having anything in this baseball hellmouth, or even worldwide hellmouth, that seems cool and fun that we’re clinging to. Maybe it’s that the Padres are really the only hope to stop the Dodgers plague for the next decade. Maybe it’s just a quirk of the past few days. Whatever, everyone needs something that makes them smile, or feel anything these days. Embrace the Padres. They will make you feel something, and you need that badly.

It was Happy Death Day in the NHL, as three teams were invited to leave their respective bubbles. The Arizona Coyotes, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Carolina Hurricanes can go back to whatever it is they do the rest of the time.

The Coyotes were walloped by the Avs 7-1, and they were kicked that hard in the face all series. The only reason they got one game is goalie Darcy Kuemper balled out one time, but he couldn’t keep up that level. No one could. The Yotes are a bad team that was granted a hockey make-a-wish to get into these playoffs, and the Avs treated them like such. Come next season, we can all go back to not being aware of their existence, which everyone was happier with.

The Jackets aren’t that, but they’re not much better, and wouldn’t have been in a normal playoff system. They actually held the Lightning without a shot for a period and a half, and had a two-goal lead. But the Bolts’ firepower eventually woke up, and Anthony Cirelli tied the game at four with a minute and a half left. Brayden Point won it five minutes into OT.

The series win exorcises some demons for the Lightning, who were swept out by the Jackets last year as Presidents’ Trophy winners. Now that they’ve cleared those out, they should be favorites to get out of the East, as they’ve been the best team since December. The Jackets can continue to change John Tortorella’s diaper after losses.

The only disappointment are the Canes, who biffed it again against the Bruins even though David Pastrnak missed most of the series and the Bruins had to go to their second goalie after Tuukka Rask opted out. While the Canes have been the analytic darlings of the league for years, at some point you can’t overcome mediocre goaltending and a lack of top-line finishing at the other end. It also doesn’t help when you run into the Bruins as they round into form, and we really need to just move to the Tampa-Boston series that will almost certainly decide the East, whatever round that happens in.

The Canes have been the “next” team for two seasons, maybe three, but the thing is, eventually you have to become the “now” team. Getting dunked on by the Bruins two years in a row doesn’t make you that. Everyone who matters there is locked in, but they’ll need a goalie for real and maybe one more difference-making forward. Will they actually pay for those this time? Can they?

While the Reds were making much bigger news last night, there was the other nugget that Human-centipede Trevor Bauer earned the ire of MLB by attempting to wear shoes that said “Free Joe Kelly.” Bauer was told he would actually be thrown out of the game if he wore them. Kelly, of course, was suspended eight games by MLB last month for throwing at Astros Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa, which brought both teams on the field for a little face-to-face.

But hey, attention-moth morons tend to attract each other, so it’s no surprise that Bauer would speak for his fellow wanna-be-oppressed. Bauer is always five minutes away from a Men’s Rights rally, and you’d think as vocal as Bauer has been about the Astros, he’d feel the same way about players on the 2018 Red Sox, who also cheated with Kelly on the team, in case you forgot. But Bauer’s head has always been somewhere logic goes to die.