The future has begun for the struggling San Diego Padres. The bat of the future, the hope of better days to come, the heir apparent, has arrived.

Anthony Rizzo, the 21-year-old minor league power hitting sensation, is in your lineup. The 1st baseman with the booming bat, and great minor league credentials, is here.

Call it the first payment due from the controversial Boston-Adrian Gonzalez trade of this past winter. Rizzo was one of the three cornerstone young minor leaguers the Padres obtained when they reached the end of the road with their perennial slugger, the home-grown talent Gonzalez, admitting they could not pay him the going superstar rate of $20 million per season.

Don't call him a savior. Just call him a great young talent, whose future is very much ahead of him. But for the last-place Padres, hope for the future is very important, especially when you look at the baseball standings.

In the history of San Diego Padres baseball, there have been phenoms who brought big stats with them. Some created a little buzz and anticipation, others just showed up. Each, though, had an immediate impact.

Tony Gwynn piled up enormous batting averages: .462 in Amarillo, .368 in Hawaii, before his call up to the show. First round draft pick Kevin McReynolds slugged 65 home runs in two minor league seasons before reporting here. Fleet-footed Alan Wiggins had a .402 season in Lodi and stole 193 bases in his final two years in the minors. Benito Santiago, who had a 33-game hitting streak as a rookie catcher with the Friars, never put up those kind of minor league numbers. Neither did legendary shortstop Ozzie Smith, nor pitcher Jake Peavy.

Padres fans didn't necessarily flock to Petco Park to see the debut of the young phenom. His arrival did not rival the anticipation of what happened last year, when former San Diego State star pitcher Stephen Strasburg got to the Washington Nationals. Sellouts, a 14-strikeout pitching debut, a bunch of dominant wins, and then the catastrophic elbow injury that will keep him out of baseball for 12 months.

No sellouts here, in fact, just a shade over 15,000, then 16,000 for his first two games. Maybe it has something to do with being a last-place club, feeling betrayed by ownership, new stadium, broken promises, low budget ballclub etc, etc.

But Rizzo brought a little buzz to the San Diego lineup. No one here mentioning things like Rookie of the Year, or making people forget Gonzalez. But they couch their comments with phrases such as "I hope it works out." This isn't like making a debut in the Yankees' stadium or in Boston or baseball-mad St. Louis.

Some called him "The Kid," others "The Natural." But that is so far from the truth. Rizzo should not be confused with the real "Kid," Ted Williams. He hasn't hit a home run yet. And don't confuse him either with Robert Redford, who made the movie about the mysterious slugger. Rizzo is quiet, polite, almost to the point of introverted.

But he can swing a stick, and anything that gives us hope in San Diego is better than what we have been exposed to lately, a team without bats, and little chance in the National League pennant race.

Rizzo dazzled some people in his first night of batting practice. He hit 7 homers in all, including three to dead center, which in Petco Park is like hitting it to the next area code. And he had four fly balls caught at the left centerfield fence. Yes it is batting practice, but have you seen some of these other Padres take BP before games?

On opening night, he struck out in his first at bat, fooled by breaking pitches, beaten by fastballs. But then he proceeded to crush a 400-foot fly ball that knocked the paint off the billboard on the fence in the deepest part of left-center. By the way, that is where Adrian Gonzalez used to plant his opposite field homers too.

Fans watching him in the stands, and those watching on TV, then saw him hit his first home run in his first at bat on Saturday. He is letting his stick to do his talking. The guys in his dugout mobbed him, and in his first weekend, he even got the cream-pie-in-the-face treatment, an official hazing-type welcome to the big leagues.

Rizzo has shown great strike zone awareness, drawing 3 walks and getting hit by a pitch in his first two days in the show. Of course there have been strikeouts, and even an error on a groundball through his legs. No problem, the other guys who have played there this year have made a bunch of errors.

What catches your eye, aside from his very smooth swing, is Rizzo's maturity. He is 21 and is not afraid of the challenges, not afraid of failure, not afraid of 100 mph fastballs. Maybe hitting .365 at Tucson and hammering home runs at the top rung in the minors has something to do with it.

Maybe baseball intelligence, knowing the science of hitting, and being addicted to studying video and consuming scouting reports has something to do with it too.

But more so, maybe it is who he is, and what he has accomplished, is the real reason why you believe in Anthony Rizzo. The great ones love challenges.

People forget Tony Gwynn had a stretch where he hit .202 in the early days. Nowadays, you can find his plaque in the baseball Hall of Fame. Cal Ripken, who stood on the front steps of Cooperstown and was enshrined the same day as Gwynn, had to go back to Rochester to hone his trade after not hitting when he first got to Baltimore.

Rizzo openly admits to being humbled. He had a 1-31 slump in one stretch a year ago in the highly competitive Eastern League. He went 1-9 in Tucson early in the Pacific Coast League season.

And he, at an early stage of his career in the Red Sox farm system, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. He beat back the lymphoma challenge, like he fought his way back from slumps.

We shall see what he is made of on this road trip that began on Monday. Colorado, Minnesota, and then going back to Fenway Park, where everyone will look at the guy the Red Sox traded to get Adrian Gonzalez. Who knows what Rizzo's batting average will be by the end of the road trip. We do know that Gonzalez is rocketing balls off the Green Monster wall in Fenway and has hit .390 since May 8.

The baseball season runs until October. You'd hate to think the Padres season is over before the official start of summer. Anthony Rizzo hopes to do well. If he does, the Padres season might not end after this road trip, and he might help them take this thing to October.

Not the savior, but pretty talented, and pretty mature. Anthony Rizzo looks special and carries himself like he might be successful. You hope so. So do the Padres.