Padres are 5-15. Losers of five straight games. Boasting a 1-7 record at Petco. Eight and a half games out of first. Last place.

May 8, 2013:

Padres are 15-18. Winners of 10 of the last 13 games. Winners of eight of the last nine at Petco. Four and a half games out of first place.

Take a moment, not to enjoy it but to reflect.

Coming into the season, Padres’ front office noted starting pitching as their number one priority in the offseason. Nothing happened. No trades, only hopeful rumors.

What did happen was a 5-15 record, four quality starts, an overworked bullpen, and unwatchable baseball. Based on the numbers the same pitching staff put up last season, no one expected the starting rotation to be so terrible. It was a miracle to see a starter pitch more than five innings.

I don’t know what happened to remind the pitchers they are a crucial part of a winning formula, but in their 10-3 run, Padres starters have a 3.95 ERA and eight quality starts. Six of those starts have gone into the seventh inning and two into the eighth. *As this is being written, Jason Marquis has pitched eight innings allowing zero runs.

Clayton Richard has surprisingly been the worst of the bunch. In the last 13 games, he is the only pitcher without a quality start and

March 28, 2013; Peoria, AZ, USA; Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

has an 8.19 ERA, only managing 9.1 innings. It was pointed out in a Padres pregame show Richard has been suffering from a flu virus causing him to lose 12 pounds. Minus Richard, the rest of the rotation has posted a 3.13 ERA with eight of 11 starts being quality starts.

Looking at this, the front office was right in looking for another quality arm. Right now, the Padres are playing “competitive” (ugh) baseball and a quality arm would have only made them better. But Byrnes and Co. were not comfortable with the starting pitcher market and rightfully so. Every pitcher rumored to be coming to Petco has stunk this season. Rick Porcello is the only pitcher not mentioned in the piece but he has been so bad he might lose his job.

If the starting pitching can stay afloat, it will be interesting to see what the Padres do at the trade deadline. Or scary as hell.

May 1, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; San Diego Padres third baseman Chase Headley (7) is congratulated by left fielder Carlos Quentin (18) for hitting a home run against the Chicago Cubs during the ninth inning at Wrigley Field. Cubs beat the Padres 6-2. Mandatory Credit: Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

The Padres have been playing much better baseball lately. They’ve won eight of their last eleven games and only sit five games off the pace in the NL West race. Outside of Clayton Richard, the starting pitching has stabilized and the offense has done enough to keep them in most ball games.

Last week, it was reported that Padres’ ownership was prepared to offer slugger Chase Headley a “record deal,” an offer that would be the biggest in the history of the franchise. However, Headley quickly came back and said that he would not negotiate a long term contract during the midst of the season, but would be happy to work out a deal during next off season.

If Headley is true to his word, this puts the Padres in a very tricky situation moving forward. They will either have to wait until the off season to discuss Headley’s long term future with the club (and risk not getting a deal done and have Headley walk to free agency, in which case the Padres would virtually lose him for nothing) or hedge their bet and trade Headley now while they can still get value back in return.

Headley is under team control through the 2014 season, which makes him an even more desirable 3B option for a pennant-seeking team. Coupled with the fact that it’s a very weak third-baseman market out there, the Padres would likely be able to get a “Latos-like” haul back for Headley if they decided to trade him before the July 31st trade deadline.

But what kind of message would that be sending from an ownership group that has promised change and has said they want to keep franchise-type players in San Diego?

The fan-base still does not trust this organization. Whether it’s controversial comments from President and CEO Tom Garfinkel, the on going Time Warner Cable fiasco, or trading away cornerstone players such as Jake Peavy, Adrian Gonzalez and Mat Latos (albeit under the old regime), the Padres have struggled with a PR image over the past several years. Shipping off Headley would be another huge blow to any hope of getting back in the good graces of the San Diego community.

While Headley is currently making around a-fairly-reasonable $8 million per year, he’ll likely get a significant salary bump if and when he hits free agency in the winter of 2014. If he gets to that point, the Padres would almost certainly get out-bid by another organization for Headley’s services.

Headley has said he won’t negotiate a long term deal during the season. However, he didn’t say he wouldn’t sign a deal during the season. So in my mind, the Padres should offer Headley a deal that he literally cannot refuse. Take away the negotiation piece. He said he wants to stay in San Diego. Ownership has said they want him to stay in San Diego. So advice to ownership: make it happen and stop making empty promises.

Otherwise, the Padres will find themselves in another lose-lose situation with the fan-base and will have to again explain why a franchise player was traded or let go just because they didn’t want to pay him market value.

Apr 5, 2013; Denver, CO, USA; San Diego Padres pitcher Jason Marquis (21) in the dugout during the fourth inning against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

That week 1 probably wasn’t how Bud Black drew it up prior to the season.

After losing two of three in New York to start the year, the Padres got swept in Colorado over the weekend. After a couple of relatively close losses on Friday and Saturday, San Diego was blown out and never competitive on Sunday.

You never want to make too much of a big deal after only one week, but one could easily make the argument that only the Astros,  Marlins, and Pirates have looked worse than the Padres so far in 2013, and even that is debatable considering each of those other teams have played at least one above-average team (Rangers, Nationals, and Dodgers, respectively).  The Padres offense has struggled mightily to get going, even in the friendly hitting park of Coors Field. It really shows how much the team misses Chase Headley and Yasmani Grandal in the middle of the lineup.  The Padres have only scored 14 runs through six games and have the worst run differential in the entire league by far at -26.

Now that we’ve examined the ugliness, let’s turn our heads to the upcoming week and see if the Padres can get on track, as they open their home schedule on Tuesday against the Dodgers.

L.A. has started off playing good baseball, as they went 4-2 last week. On Tuesday, Clayton Richard will look to forget about his poor first outing as he takes on Josh Beckett in the opener. On Wednesday, the Padres lone bright spot in the rotation so far Eric Stults will go up against Chad Billingsley. The series finale will include Padres veteran Jason Marquis and Dodger newcomer and former AL Cy Young winner Zack Greinke. The silver lining is that the Padres avoid facing Dodgers’ ace Clayton Kewshaw in this series.

Of course, one of the big story lines is Adrian Gonzalez returning to San Diego for the first time in 2013. I’m sure he’ll get a warm reception, but that’s primarily because they’ll be more Dodger fans than Padres fans in attendance. My prediction for the series is that the Dodgers will take two of three from the Padres.

The weekend series will give the Padres a chance to avenge this past weekends sweep when the Rockies come to Petco for a three game set.  It’s too early to tell what the pitching match ups will be, but given that both the Padres and Rockies have three games and a day off before Friday, we’ll likely see some of the same pitching match ups as we did this past weekend. I think the offense will finally get going a bit and the Padres will win two of three this series.

One thing I will be paying close attention to is how the ball park plays with the new outfield dimensions.  Right field has been moved in 11 feet, right-center 11 feet as well, and left-center 12 feet. While we likely won’t know the complete ramifications until the end of the season, I’m sure the fences will, at the very least, make it “feel” much closer for the players than last season.