![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-padres-0401-023.jpg\")
Kyle Hart #68 of the San Diego Padres pitches against the San Francisco Giants during the fifth inning at Petco Park on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nThe Padres\u2019 annual trip to Cincinnati this year begins in late August, so it could very well still be hot and humid and downright uncomfortable outside.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d have to be a big fan of Skyline Chili to look forward to a trip to Great American Ball Park to call it your favorite road city \u2014 unless you grew up looking forward to the couple of times a year you commuted two hours from North Star, Ohio, to the home of the Reds.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody\u2019s going to say Cincinnati, but it\u2019s home,\u201d Padres manager Craig Stammen said. \u201cI\u2019ll see a lot of family. It\u2019s familiar. I can pick out all the places I got to watch the games in the stands and now I\u2019m on the field. It\u2019s a good trip down memory lane and makes me appreciate where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s as good a reason as any for a Padre to circle a road trip on the calendar.<\/p>\n
Jackson Merrill, for instance, grew up idolizing Dustin Pedroia, so the every-other-year trip to Fenway Park is one he looks forward to. It\u2019s home-ish for Boston College product Michael King, too, so a few days in and around historic Newbury Street rivals his favorite West Coast attraction of Pike Place Market in Seattle.<\/p>\n
The reason Ty France loves Boston: The heckling, believe it or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoston fans are mean,\u201d the San Diego State product said with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s always fun playing there.\u201d<\/p>\n
France isn\u2019t often out on the town while on the road, but there are plenty of cities that offer fun away from the ballpark.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always enjoy going to New York,\u201d second baseman Jake Cronenworth said. \u201cIt\u2019s great to have an off day and go out and have a great dinner. The same with DC. DC has a ton of great food. Have a night out on the town and go to a great dinner with some of the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Hart #68 of the San Diego Padres pitches against the San Francisco Giants during the fifth inning at Petco Park on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Kyle Hart is of the same mind, but he prefers a three-day trip to New York\u2019s Yankee Stadium or Citi Field over a four-day jaunt. There\u2019s only so much traffic that a Midwesterner can handle.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York\u2019s fun, but only for a couple days,\u201d Hart said. \u201cIt\u2019s a 45-minute drive to the field, if not an hour. That gets old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nick Pivetta doesn\u2019t want much to do with traffic, either. He has a 13.05 ERA in his career at Coors Field, but he\u2019s still drawn to the Denver area for the fishing, hiking and golf.<\/p>\n
Ram\u00f3n Laureano also likes being out in the sun in Miami and Arizona \u2014 if he goes out. He usually doesn\u2019t, unless he\u2019s looking for a good burger or java.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t go out unless there\u2019s a good city for a coffee shop, like Minnesota,\u201d Laureano said.<\/p>\n
The teams that drafted Jeremiah Estrada and Joe Musgrove \u2014 Chicago and Toronto, respectively \u2014 have it all in their cities. Musgrove didn\u2019t make it to the big leagues with the Blue Jays, but \u201cthe people, the city, the food, the stadium\u201d make the Rogers Centre in Toronto one of his favorite every-other-year stops. Estrada made his big-league debut with the Cubs and said he enjoys every return trip he gets as a member of the Padres.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city of Chicago is beautiful,\u201d Estrada said. \u201cI love the weather. I love how it can go from cold to hot. It has everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mason Miller feels the same way about Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
But because it\u2019s home. He has yet to pitch there as a pro, so next week\u2019s trip to PNC Park has been circled on his calendar for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be special,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI pitched there in high school. I grew up going to games there. As far as a sentimental meaning, that\u2019ll be the top for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres\u2019 annual trip to Cincinnati this year begins in late August, so it could very well still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,853,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-661044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116341641231063330","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}