It’s no indictment of Padres fans that Dodgers fans outnumbered them the past few days at Petco Park.

Wherever the Dodgers stop on the West Coast, even in San Francisco last week, you’ll see many thousands of Dodgers fans.

Padres fans are buying lots of tickets, despite the team’s many dismal recent seasons on the field. The sellout crowds of the past weekend set a ballpark attendance record for a three-game series. Though the Padres lost twice, it’s clear that they’re improved. Padres fans will come back.

I’ve never understood the “blame the fans” shtick, anyway.


If a donut shop served stale donuts and bad coffee for years, would you blame customers for balking at a return?

Besides, the Padres’ business model is built on attracting not only Padres fans but tourists.

The bustling scene in the East Village lately is what the ballpark’s supporters had in mind two-plus decades ago when Padres ownership contemplated a move from Mission Valley.

The team targeted downtown in anticipation of out-of-town fans supplementing the turnout of locals.


Downtown leaders, for their part, saw the tourist payoff as reason to support having hotel taxes foot most of the ballpark’s construction bill.

Trust me as someone who’s gone to 40-plus other MLB venues: For out-of-town visitors who want to catch a baseball game and perhaps enjoy other attractions nearby, San Diego is as good as it gets for low hassle and amenities.

So, coupled with transplanted San Diegans who are forever hooked on the teams of their youth, no matter how good the Padres get on the field, you should expect to see thousands of fans of almost any visiting team at Petco Park.

Padres fans may have to grin and bear it, something they’re used to doing anyway.


A consoling belief for them is that perhaps the spending of opposing teams’ fans will translate into the Padres having a better chance to improve the baseball product. You’d like to think there’s a payoff for Padres fans and ballpark employees for enduring the recent Dark Ages of Padres baseball, and this may be one of them: Of the five teams with the worst winning percentage the past five season, the Padres fared the best at holding attendance.

In fact, the team enjoyed an increase in gross attendance by about 44,000 between 2013-18 despite a .444 win rate that was 27th out of 30 teams. Every other team among the bottom-5 -- the White Sox, Phillies, Marlins and Reds -- saw its attendance go down, as one would expect. (The numbers come from Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated.)

These Padres are much more interesting than those five Padres teams, plus several others before them dating to 2008. Already, three candidates have emerged for the team’s “most valuable” award. Start with $300-million signee Manny Machado despite some lulls with the bat. Machado has played highly entertaining defense on the left side of the infield and his power is emerging. He drove three Dodgers pitches -- slider, curveball and fastball -- for home runs in the recent series. Rookie shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. was off to one of the better starts in the big leagues and best on the team before sustaining a hamstring injury last week. Fellow rookie Chris Paddack is a pitcher who makes you look up the date of his next outing.

For franchise MVP, keep an eye on General Manager A.J. Preller’s progress, but an unconventional pick that would hold up in any year is Petco Park.