As the 2014 Major League Baseball season gets underway, The San Diego Padres look to finally exceed expectations and make a deep run in October.  The Padres are projected to finish towards the bottom of the pack, but anything can happen in baseball.

The Padres have just wrapped up their first series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, winning one out of the three home games played at Petco Park.  Although losing the majority of the games, the padres definitely showed some flashes of hope as top pitcher Andrew Cashner looked very impressive in his first start of the season.  Offense wise, newly acquired outfielder hit two homeruns in the series and has a .429 average.  The Padres also have high hopes for shortstop Evereth Cabrera and catcher Yasmani Grandal, who both return from 50 game suspensions for steroid abuse last season.

In order for the Padres to go deep into the season, they will be counting on a bounce back season from Chase Headley, who two years ago lead the national league in runs batted in (RBI’s) and another productive season from last year’s breakout star, outfielder Will Venable.  Venable was arguably the Padres MVP last season while Headley had a very disappointing campaign.  The Padres will also need to count on the veteran presences of outfielder Carlos Quentin and closer Huston Street.  Both these players are well past their prime, but can still help out the team with their big league experience.

Fans of the San Diego Padres know that this season should be like the past few, but the Padres can always play spoiler as they are known to get off to a very slow start but actually play pretty well later in the season.  Their west division rivals, the LA Dodgers, have made many new acquisitions and new deals this offseason such as the 215 million dollar deal with Cy Young award winner Clayton Kershaw and are expected to be leading the pack.  However, if the Padres can pitch well play good defense, and receive timely hitting, they will have a great chance of winning a wild card spot and make a run in the playoffs.