Tom Krasovic: Don’t make too much of Padres’ September swoon

When it comes to making sense of September baseball, go easy. September can deceive like a knuckleball.

Case in point: The best of Padres clubs stunk up most of September and then lit up the National League playoffs.

When September began in 1998, the Padres led the NL West race by miles, yet still looked as intent and sharp as they had all year.

That Tuesday night show featured Greg Vaughn hitting his 46th and 47th home runs, each off Mets starter Hideo Nomo. Tony Gwynn whacked three hits. Steve Finley homered. “Hells Bells” sounded, and Trevor Hoffman quickly bagged his 45th save.

The Padres stood 90-49.

From Sept 2 onward, things changed. Playing a lot of C- baseball, the Padres lost 15 of 22 games before winning the season’s last contest.

Some skeptics trotted out the notion that a limping team, even one that won 98 games, would not last long in the postseason.

As it turned out, what mattered a whole lot more than the Padres’ three-week stagger to the tape was that pitcher Kevin Brown had maintained good health — and had improved his odds for playoff success with cagey actions unknown to outsiders.

Brown continued to lean on the turbo-sinker fastball that was his best pitch, but with the playoff opener against the Astros in mind, the righty also fine-tuned his four-seam fastball. The plan was to surprise the Astros in key moments with fastballs that appeared to rise rather than sink.

In Game 1, Brown uncorked perhaps the best big-game performance in Padres history.

He outpitched Hall of Famer Randy Johnson and notched 16 strikeouts. An Astros lineup that included Hall of Famers Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio couldn’t measure Brown’s fastballs and other pitches over the eight scoreless innings. The Astrodome wasn’t as noisy as it had been most of the season.

Further distancing the Padres from the poor September was Gwynn, despite painful knee and foot ailments.

Doing what few lefty hitters could have — ever — Gwynn sliced a double off a two-strike slider from the 6-foot-10 lefty Johnson that was off the plate on a day when the plate umpire had established a 19-inch-wide strike zone. That set up the game’s first run.

Vaughn homered off Johnson, giving him 51 home runs on the year. Hoffman secured the win after allowing a run.

The Padres went on to win the first-round series, three games to one.

What September slump?

Next were the Braves, another 100-plus victory team that boasted several Hall of Famers, but the Padres, led by Brown and pitcher Sterling Hitchcock, won the series, four games to two.

The September swoon was proved a mirage by early October.

Today’s baseball, compared to 1998 baseball, is a much different game in several key areas such as velocity, spin rate, bullpen usage and home run obsession. Make no mistake: the current Padres team won’t come near the ’98 club’s total of 98 victories. Yellow flags in the rotation and in the offense argue against a deep playoff run.

But I won’t read much into these Padres having played a lot of C- baseball for the past few weeks, while they knew the wild-card standings gave them a sizable margin for error.

If Padres ace Nick Pivetta continues to maintain good health, I’d count that as more important than the team’s September lulls. The strikeout, which becomes more valuable in October, is a big driver to Pivetta’s success.

Whatever wrinkles Pivetta might have in store for a playoff opponent won’t be known unless and until he faces them. Broadening his options there, he has established a wide array of pitches this season.

Pivetta isn’t as talented as Brown. But on top of wearing the same jersey number 27 (by happenstance), he’s a fiery, calculating right-hander. Pivetta pitching the Padres to a Game 1 win against, say, the Cubs, would not qualify as a surprise. Of the two offenses, the Cubs get the edge. But Pivetta’s season eclipses that of any Cubs starting pitcher.

The finish to a season is scarcely more predictive than the start of the season. The World Series tournament is its own beast.