Good morning from Denver,
Something super impressive happened last night at Coors Field during the Padres’ 21-0 victory over the Rockies.
The volume of runs and margin of victory were impressive, for sure. Even if the Padres were playing a team that seems bound to challenge the record of 121 losses in a season set just last year by the White Sox. Even if they were playing a mile high.
But there was something arguably even more extraordinary:
How the Padres played.
They played like they were leading 1-0 when it was 19-0. That is rare stuff.
You can read (here) in my game story about how the Padres put together the most lopsided victory in franchise history.
The story listed a lot of the nuts and bolts about the preposterous number of hits and runs and how Stephen Kolek threw just the 28th complete game shutout in Coors Field history.
The story also touched on the relentless way the Padres went about the rout.
I don’t often repeat themes from the game story in the newsletter, but let’s touch some more on what the Padres did.
This was a laugher in May against a horrible team. And the Padres were treating it like Game 7. (OK, I’m exaggerating slightly. But still.)
It was truly remarkable how the Padres just kept going last night. As noted in the game story, they were working long at-bats and beating out double play balls well past the time it was necessary to secure a win. They kept at it until the Rockies brought in a catcher to pitch the final two innings. (They scored just one run off Jacob Stallings at the end.)
They believe that is how they need to play to get as many wins as possible. So it wasn’t really about last night.
“This game is over,” Jake Cronenworth said. “… We’re gonna come back and play the same way tomorrow.”
If you are just starting to pay attention and want to know why the Padres are off to the best start in team history and are now in a virtual tie for first place in the National League West, this is why.
A team that does what the Padres did last night only knows one way to play.
“We don’t want to get complacent at any point during the game,” Jackson Merrill said. “Honestly, treat the game like it’s tied. I know it sounds like ‘summer ball’ or ‘daddy ball’ to say. But don’t get complacent ever. Go up there and grind that (expletive) out.”
As we have discussed here before, Mike Shildt is the one behind the Padres playing this way. If you don’t think so, you didn’t watch the 2023 Padres very closely. Shildt was hired before 2024 and created a leadership council of players and worked with them to create the identity they wanted to have.
It was an identity characterized by winning on the margins, playing for each other and being relentless.
The players bought in. They owned it. For all we have talked about this trait, it is possible it is still overlooked.
It shouldn’t be.
That 2023 team had no business not making the playoffs. Had it played like the 2024 and ’25 Padres — even close — they would not have been such a monumental disappointment.
This Padres team still needs to stay healthy. They might need another bat and maybe even another back-end reliever before the season is over.
But it appears they have proven they will mostly play only one way.
“True competition over a long season is a real challenge in this league, and the separator is when you compete regardless of circumstance,” Shildt said last night. “Hot, cold, day game, night game, up, down, you just keep — your habits are so consistent that it’s just the fabric of who you are, and that’s what this team represents.”
Getting it done
Kolek has made being a starting pitcher pretty simple.
“Just attack,” he said.
The 28-year-old right-hander is throwing strikes at a 63% rate through his first two big-league starts. He is throwing first-pitch strikes 64% percent of the time and getting through innings in an average of less than 13 pitches.
He got 11 groundouts last night to go with his seven strikeouts and finished his complete game shutout in 104 pitches.
Of the 77 shutouts in Padres history, just 16 have been completed in fewer pitches than that. The last to be done more efficiently was in 2014 by Andrew Cashner (92 pitches).
There was never a question about whether Kolek would finish the game.
“After the seventh,” Kolek said of when he first thought about the idea of going nine. “Just going through seven, I saw 70-some pitches. And I was like, ‘All right, stay efficient here. Just stay on the attack. Don’t change anything.’ I didn’t change my mindset, trying to just be like, ‘All right, let’s get one more.’ It was just keep doing what we’re doing and just trust in myself and trust in (catcher Elias) Díaz.”
Kolek was in some ways in his element.
He was sent down to Triple-A at the start of the season, where he made three starts in the desert of El Paso and one start in Albuquerque, which is virtually the same elevation as Denver.
So he was comfortable pitching in thin air against a team stocked with guys who should be in the minor leagues.
Sorry, couldn’t help it.
There really should not be any diminishing of what Kolek accomplished last night, ing Andy Ashby as just the second Padres pitcher in Coors Field’s 30 years of existence to throw a complete game shutout at the mile-high ballpark.
If he had been facing a team of beer league softball squad here, it would have been a challenge to not allow any runs over nine innings. Walks seem to lead to bloop hits which lead to popup doubles and fly ball home runs. It can spiral on a pitcher quick in this place.
It had been three years since a Rockies pitcher threw a complete game shutout at Coors Field and 12 years since a visiting pitcher had done so.
This was Kolek’s second major league start, and he has yet to allow a run in 14 ⅔ innings. He is the first Padres pitcher to accomplish that in his first two career starts.
It was the Padres’ second complete game shutout this year. Both have come against the Rockies, with Michael King holding them scoreless on April 13 at Petco Park.
The last time they had two complete game shutouts in a season was 2021, when Joe Musgrove did it twice.
Kolek’s added challenge last night was that he had to wait while the Padres scored all those runs. They sent 12 batters to the plate in the fourth inning and 10 in the fifth.
“You do have to kind of put a little effort into blocking it out, and just the extra reps of just trying to stay warm and throwing in between innings and stuff,” Kolek said. “I felt it a little bit earlier, a little fatigued. But felt like I caught a second wind there towards the end of the game and was able to finish strong.”
They’ll come
The Padres’ five home runs last night were their most in a game since 2023.
They hit five twice that season, both at Coors Field. They hit six homers once that season, against the Giants in Mexico City, which is 2,100 feet higher than Denver.
So let’s not get carried away.
At least two of their home runs last night were courtesy of Coors Field. (The ball just doesn’t travel over the wall like it did when Xander Bogaerts hit it off the end of his bat at 96 mph anywhere else.)
But they were home runs. They count.
And the Padres were not going to endure a power outage forever.
The Padres entered last night’s game tied for 25th in the major leagues with 31 home runs. That number is now 36, still just 19th. Before hitting two of them last night, the Padres were the only team in the majors without a three-run homer this season.
Merrill being out for 24 games was not enough to explain the lack of slug.
So before Friday’s game, I talked to hitting coach Victor Rodriguez about it.
“Homers are gonna come,” he said. “I think our focus a lot is trying to drive the ball, use the whole field, play the game. When the weather starts getting (warmer) the guys are going to start hitting (homers).”
The Padres hit to the opposite field more frequently (29% of their balls in play) than any other team. They are 10th in line drive percentage (20%). They lead the majors with a .269 batting average.
And last year we were talking about a lack of power early on as well.
The Padres ranked 20th in the majors with 59 home runs 65 games into last season. They hit 131 home runs over their remaining 97 games and finished 10th in the majors.
“The reason we did it last year was because we had a good approach,” Rodriguez said. “We were more thinking gap to gap line drives. … A lot of times when a team is not hitting homers we lose sight of who we are because then we start trying to hit homers. That is a very delicate situation. I’m happy, because we are staying with our approach.”
Tidbits
- Dylan Cease, who departed his last start with a cramp in his right (throwing) forearm, did his usual routine Saturday and plans to throw his between-starts bullpen Sunday in advance of his start Tuesday against the Angels.
- Yu Darvish, who was shut down in mid-March with elbow inflammation, is expected to make a rehab start in the middle of next week. The Padres have not decided which minor-league that start will be with.
- Last night was the Padres’ ninth shutout victory, three more than any other team.
- Fernando Tatis Jr. hit his first homer in 16 games last night. The 62 at-bats between home runs was the longest drought of his career.
- Tatis batted five times in the first five innings. After he homered in the top of the fifth, his night was finished. The Padres were up 19-0. The next inning, Shildt pulled Manny Machado and Bogaerts.
- Merrill had his first four-hit game of the season and fourth in his 170-game career last night. He is 11-for- 19 in four games since returning from the injured list. He had at least two hits in five straight games and is13-for-24 in that span. He is batting .446/.475/.732 in 14 games.
- Machado was 2-for-3 with a double last night and is batting .474 (18-for-38) during a 10-game hitting streak. That streak is tied for the 12th-longest of his career and is tied for the longest current streak in the majors. His .326 batting average on the season is second in the NL, one point behind the Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan.
- Gavin Sheets was 3-for-6 with a double and a home run last night. His five home runs are second on the team to Tatis’ nine. His seven doubles are third behind Machado (14) and Bogaerts (nine).
- Díaz was 3-for-5 with a double. It was his his first three-hit game since June 5, 2024. That was also a Coors Field while he was playing for the Rockies.
- Luis Arraez was 3-for-7 with a triple last night. It was his MLB-leading seventh game with at least three hits. He has raised his batting average 18 points to .298 by going 6-for-13 in the series here.
- Cronenworth is batting .286 (12-for-42) with a .436 on-base percentage after going 2-for-4 with a walk last night in his second game back from the IL. He also hit his third home run of the season last night moving into a tie with Arraez, Díaz and Machado for third on the team.
- Bogaerts was 2-for-4 with a 53 mph infield single and his “Coors Field Special” home run. Based on launch angle and exit velocity, the homer was deemed by StatCast to have a 27% probability of being a hit. That helps make up for his making outs on two balls he hit Friday with hit probabilities above 60%.
- Jose Iglesias’ single in the sixth inning was his first time on base in 21 plate appearances.
- The Padres are 6-2 on the road trip that ends today. They had a 7-2 road trip last season. What they have not done since 2011 is sweep a three-game series at Coors Field.
All right, that’s it for me. Early game today (12:10 p.m. PT) and then a flight home. A flight home! This road trip has seemed really long. Has it seemed long to you?
Talk to you tomorrow.
