The secret behind the Padres' turnaround? Manager Bob Melvin ripping them

SAN DIEGO — Bob Melvin is about as mild-mannered as big league managers come, a 19-year veteran whose style has always leaned more toward the even-keeled, professorial Gil Hodges than the volcanic Billy Martin.So when the San Diego Padres field boss aired out his players in the clubhouse and then ripped them to the media after a lackluster 4-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sept. 15, it caught his club by surprise.“It’s interesting, because you don’t see it much,” Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth said with a laugh, when asked what it’s like when Melvin gets mad. “I think it was the right time and place to kind of light a fire under everybody, and it seemed to work. If he needs to get mad again, I wouldn’t be mad.”There has been no need for such managerial outbursts this past week, not with the Padres pushing the 111-win Dodgers to the brink of elimination in the NL Division Series. San Diego held a two-games-to-one advantage in the best-of-five series entering Game 4 in Petco Park Saturday night.But the Padres might not be alive and in position to win their first World Series title in franchise history if not for Melvin’s timely…
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