Here’s a story you probably haven’t heard about, and it involves the bullpen of the San Diego Padres, which would be the reason you haven’t heard of it. The Padres bullpen has started the year off with 28 1/3 scoreless innings. In addition, they have only given up twelve hits and six walks. That brings their WHIP to .63 and their ERA to exactly zero. This is taking domination to an entirely new level.

If you have a bullpen that can come in and completely shut out the entire team, then you have a distinct advantage over everyone else. That is exactly what the San Diego Padres have done. It certainly helps that they have the best closer in baseball history (yes, he’s better than Mariano Rivera, no I’m not going to argue this here) to lock down the ninth inning in Trevor Hoffman. His change up is simply unhittable, and coming after power pitchers Scott LInebrink and Cla Meredith, this change of pace ruins hitters.

With Meredith and Linebrink in the seventh and eighth inning the Padres have turned the game into a six inning affair. You hear the cliche about a great closer can shorten a game to eight innings, but I can’t recall many teams that can shorten a game to six innings. With two of the best setup men in the game the Padres have succeeded in that.

This should give every team a reason to fear the Padres. They might not be able to hit that well, but if they can get a few runs and take a lead through the sixth inning, then you can consider the game over. If the Padres can get anything even close to this production throughout the year then they will be contending for the NL West title late into the season.