The moment for which so many Padres fans have been waiting could come as soon as a few days after the conclusion of this year’s World Series.

Sure, a parade could be held downtown.

But far more certain is that the world this fall will see the uniforms the Padres plan to be wearing when they win their first championship.

The team’s chief marketing officer said Thursday the Padres will unveil their new brown and gold ensemble as early as November.


The “rich brown and vibrant gold” color scheme and the font for the numbers and letters have been finalized. The specifics were submitted to Major League Baseball and Nike earlier this month.

That essentially brings to the finish line a process that began more than two years ago.

The decision to return to the color combination the Padres wore from their inception in 1969 through 1984 came after two rounds of surveys and two rounds of dial research groups indicated it was the preference of the largest segment of Padres fans.

“I think it’s going to be a look and feel that San Diego can be proud of,” Wayne Partello said. “It’s an answer to what we heard.”


The Padres want to guard as many details as they can until the unveiling. But they did allow the Union-Tribune to witness some of their research groups. At that time, fans involved seemed to favor a white home jersey that included pinstripes.

Partello said Thursday that the word mark for the “San Diego” on the team’s road jersey will be different than the current version. Those away uniforms are sand, not baseball’s traditional gray. However, the sand is based in a brown palette, which will make it unique from the sand color the Padres wore on the road from 2004-10.

The Padres are doing “some fine tuning, some detail work,” such as determining design of outerwear and a subtle change to the “SD” logo.

Padres Executive Chairman Ron Fowler has vowed this will be the last uniform tweak for many years for a team that has had at least 10 significant jersey iterations (with several more tweaks) in its half-century of existence.


“The only consistency in our uniforms has been their inconsistency,” Partello said. “This moving forward is about consistency. This is about locking in on a look and feel that is consistent with what the fans and community wanted and moving forward with a look that is only us. The thing we heard is that the desire is for unique. This will be different.”

MLB does not allow for an announcement of this kind before the end of the World Series. The exact date of the reveal will depend on the schedule of some Padres players the team would like to participate in the event.

The new version will be for sale at the time of the announcement.



Resurgent Lucchesi

Joey Lucchesi planned to start watching video of Yankees batters this past Sunday and then throw in the Rogers Centre bullpen with those hitters in mind.

Wednesday was supposed to be his next start. But he was told to instead prepare to start Friday against the Marlins, because Chris Paddack’s scheduled start against the Blue Jays had been pushed back three days due to a stiff neck.


“Just gotta accept it, adjust accordingly,” Lucchesi said earlier this week. “I have a little extra time. I just have to make sure my arm is in shape and I’m focused.”

That’s something the 25-year-old left-hander has noticeably been for three starts.

Lucchesi took a 5.00 ERA and 1.44 WHIP into his May 11 start at Colorado. He allowed one run on three hits in 5 1/3 innings that day and in the two starts since has allowed five runs in 13 2/3 innings.

That’s an average of 6 1/3 innings per outing when he had gone six innings just once in his first seven starts.


“He’s growing right in front of all our eyes,” catcher Austin Hedges said. “He’s confident in all his pitches, where he can throw them to specific lanes. Now, it’s not just stuff over command. He can throw them where he wants to. … He got his teeth kicked in a little bit earlier in the year. He was like, ‘I have to make an adjustment or I’m going to keep getting humbled, and who knows what’s going to happen.’ Hats off to him.”

Lucchesi has been highly pitch-efficient in his past three starts. He’s getting ahead in counts far more often. He’s thrown a first-pitch strike 65 percent of the time in his past two starts, compared to 54 percent in his first eight. He has taken an average of 3.52 pitches per batter even while striking out 21 in 19 innings. That’s because he’s walked just two batters in the past three games, compared with 12 in his first seven starts.

With the well-documented workload limits on Matt Strahm and Paddack, the continued durability of Lucchesi is paramount in maintaining bullpen viability.

“Our team needs it,” Lucchesi said. “Then we’ll be pretty nasty.”



Hedgey vs. Hunter

The good-natured competition between Hedges and outfielder Hunter Renfroe is real, not just manufactured for a series of segments the Padres push on social media in which they engage in different manner of one-on-one battles.


The likelihood that Renfroe will top what Hedges did this past Saturday is extremely slim.

When Hedges hit a grand slam and was later hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the Padres’ 19-4 victory over the Blue Jays, he became the first player in major league history to have five at-bats, strike out four times, hit a grand slam and have five RBIs in a game. According to ESPN Stats and Info, five others have struck out four times and hit a grand slam. Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson did it twice.

When Hedges was finished chuckling at how he accomplished history, he took it as further confirmation that he had again bested Renfroe and was more valuable to the Padres on that day.

“Hunter was trying to give me (grief),” Hedges said. “He’s like, ‘I got two homers. You punched out again.’ I was like, ‘I got five steaks. You got three. So technically, with all my strikeouts, I helped the team win more.’ ”



Notable

Manny Machado walked twice but was 0-for-2 on Wednesday, ending his road hitting streak at 13 games and his overall hitting streak at eight games. It was just the 11th time in his 55 games with the Padres that Machado has not had a hit. He has reached base safely in all but six games.

Eric Hosmer extended his hitting streak to eight games, in which time he has 13 hits in 32 at-bats.