Team Heat Check: San Diego Padres Run Hot, Colorado Rockies Run Cold (MLB)

Ten games is not a season, but it is a mood, and moods decide a lot of games. The current mood around MLB: San Diego Padres keep winning, Colorado Rockies keep losing, and everybody else lives somewhere in the weather between.

The warm end of the table

San Diego Padres own the league's best recent ledger at 9-1, and the +24 runs margin underneath it says the record is earned. Per game the numbers read 7.1 for and 4.7 against, a gap that does not happen by accident across 10 games.

Right behind them sit Milwaukee Brewers, 8-2 over the same kind of stretch and +32 on runs margin, quieter, but pointed the same direction.

Keep Tampa Bay Rays in the conversation too, at 8-2 over their last 10.

For scale, the league as a whole is averaging 4.6 runs a game over this window, San Diego Padres are clearing that bar by 2.5 a night all on their own.

Who's cold

Then there is Colorado Rockies. A 2-8 stretch is ugly on its own; pair it with a -23 runs margin and it stops looking like bad luck. They are being outscored by about 2.3 runs a game, and no scheduling quirk explains that away.

They have company at the cold end: Cincinnati Reds, 3-7 over the same window.

Do not ignore the middle class, either: Baltimore Orioles (5-5) and Arizona Diamondbacks (4-6) sit close enough that a single hot or cold series flips their order.

At a glance

Here is the warm half of the form table, last ten games for every club:

The fine print

As always, watch where record and runs margin tell different stories about the same club. The margin tends to know first.

Next up on the slate: San Diego Padres against Los Angeles Dodgers. Check back after that one goes final.