Column: Despite tarnished start to 2023 season, Ha

Baseball fans don't holler "DEE-fense!"

They would, if they were lucky stiffs like me.

At San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium in the mid-1980s, my gig as a film runner put me some 60 feet behind home plate. The field-level view through a backstop porthole beat the vantage from either dugout.

Defense revealed itself as trickier than it looked on TV. Routine grounders weren't always routine. Popups in foul ground could be bewildering. Exposed to baserunners bearing down on them, middle infielders and catchers had to think and move fast. Being clobbered was sometimes the price of success.

Attention to detail on defense — or the lack of it — decided games.

Later on, a reporting job that took me to some 200 MLB games per year convinced me defense was a very big deal.

To my surprise, fielding intricacies delivered entertainment in almost every game. If you went to the ballpark often enough, the defensive nuances rewarded you.

Baseball selling out to the home run, the strikeout and the walk in the past few decades meant less was asked of defenders.

The ball wasn't in play as much.

Related, baseballs began to carry like golf balls.

The bunt became a relic, demanding less of infielders. As the running game receded, the defenders could exhale more.

Defense still matters.

If it didn't, Padres fans might’ve stopped going to games by now.

Defending is what the 2023 Padres do best. Flaws notwithstanding, they’re better at defense than most of the other 29 teams.

Baseball fans don't holler "DEE-fense" but Padres fans do so, in effect, when they chant "Ha-Seong Kim."

Kim is having one of the better defensive stretches in club history.

At shortstop, he might be the best to play for the Padres other than Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith.

At second base, he's become a force. And making it a rare trifecta, he appears comfortable at third base as well.

With 10 runs saved at second base, Kim leads The Fielding Bible rankings at the position. His pursuers trail him by half or more of his total. His range to his right piles up huge numbers.

Manny Machado still resembles the best third baseman in Padres history, although a bad decision he made Sunday showed he's pressing during what has been one of his career's worst offensive stretches.

At 6-foot-2 and weighing up to 228 pounds, Xander Bogaerts is so large he can appear ponderous at shortstop.

Scouts laud his footwork and angles. What does the data say? Bogaerts’ outs above average ranking stands in MLB's 100th percentile.

Fernando Tatis Jr. has taken to right field. That he can cover 30 feet in one second and throw 90 to 100 mph offsets growing pains. He wants the baseball hit to him.

Led by Kim and Tatis, the Padres stand first in The Fielding Bible's rankings at second base and right field. At third base and shortstop, they’re above average. In center field, where Tatis lined up Monday, they’re neutral.

Even Juan Soto has joined the party. The left fielder's one-hop strike Sunday to catcher Austin Nola prevented a run.

In team defense, the Padres sit third and fourth, as measured by Baseball-Reference.com and The Fielding Bible.

Take a look at the six teams surrounding the Padres in the top seven for defensive efficiency, Baseball-Reference's data-driven estimate of balls in play converted into outs. They’re all winners. The Rays (42-19) have MLB's best record and are tied with the Brewers (32-27) for first in defensive efficiency, one spot ahead of the Padres.

Pitching and defense still matter, but the Padres are making it harder to see how much they matter.

Sixth in fewest runs allowed, the Padres are surrounded by six teams that took winning records into this week: the Astros (35-24), Twins (31-29), Rays, Rangers (38-20), Braves (35-24) and Yankees (36-25).

So what we have here, in the 2023 Padres, is a team that has played winning defense in concert with better-than-average pitching.

Yet differentiating themselves from other run-prevention standouts, the Padres are four games below .500 following Monday's 5-0 win over the Cubs.

Leather only goes so far when an offense struggles as much as Padres hitters have.