Good morning,
Randy Vásquez is good.
To this point, those who would assert that would do so in the context of his being a back-of-the rotation starter.
That argument has been made in this space a couple times this season.
But maybe Vásquez is better than that.
“He can be really good,” said Martín Maldonado, who has caught a lot of excellent pitchers in his 15-year major league career. “As good as he wants to be.”
Maldonado said that last night after Vásquez continued what might be a burgeoning breakout season by turning in his second consecutive quality start.
You can read (here) in my game story from the Padres’ 5-1 victory over the Angels about how Vásquez got an early lead provided by Xander Bogaerts’ three-run homer in the first inning and how the Padres bullpen threw three scoreless innings to halt a dreadful streak.
Let’s talk now about Vásquez, who has a 2.12 ERA over 17 innings in his past three starts.
Now, we have to begin the discussion by pointing out those starts have come against the Pirates, Rockies and Angels.
Here is a look at Vásquez’s past three starts alongside a listing of where those three teams rank among MLB’s 30 clubs:
But it is the underlying numbers that provide encouragement about where Vásquez is headed.
He led the major leagues with 24 walks through his first seven starts, which included the start in Pittsburgh. He has walked one batter each of his past two starts.
“Obviously at the beginning it was like four, five walks (a game),” Vásquez said. “But now we’re getting down to about two, which is really eliminating a lot of big issues out there.”
It was like something clicked after the Pittsburgh start. He said that night he knew he was trying to be too fine when he was ahead in counts. He said he knew he needed to just throw strikes and trust his pitches.
And then he started doing it.
“It’s understanding that what he has is enough,” Maldonado said. “It’s common with a lot of pitchers. They want to strike out guys. That’s when you see the 0-2 pitch, 1-2 pitch, they want to be perfect. … His confidence is up right now. He’s feeling good. That game in Colorado and today he was controlling counts.”
Vásquez was allowing a .240 batting average and .387 on-base percentage after being ahead 1-2 in counts through his first seven starts. The Rockies and Angels were 1-for-13 after Vásquez got up 1-2.
He was allowing a .333 batting average and .487 OBP with two outs through seven starts. The Rockies and Angels went 1-for-10 and walked once with two outs.
Vasquez was throwing first-pitch strikes 54% of the time his first seven starts. He did so at a 67% rate his past two starts.
He was at 1-2 an average of 3.5 times a game and 2-1 an average of 5.3 times a game over his first seven starts. Those numbers are pretty much reversed his past two starts.
“Pretty simple,” Maldonado said. “ You control those counts, you’re going to be able to pitch into the sixth, into the seventh, and you’re going to limit damage.”
Vasquez has had to really scramble to limit damage in the past.
He had a 4.87 ERA and 1.51 WHIP last season. He began 2025 by somehow posting a 1.74 ERA over his first four starts while yielding a 1.35 WHIP.
There is only so much traffic a pitcher can maintain until it crashes on him. And it did on Vásquez the next two starts, when he allowed six runs in two innings against the Tigers on April 21 and six days later against the Rays allowed three runs in 4⅔ innings.
It seemed like we were headed back to 2024 levels.
But now, if you take out those two poor starts, Vásquez has a 1.51 ERA this season.
I realize how preposterous that is. You don’t get to take out starts.
Fine.
But take out Dylan Cease’s two worst starts, and he has a 3.00 ERA.
That says something about how well Vásquez has pitched for the bulk of this season.
He is not Cease. He is not Michael King. He might not be Nick Pivetta.
But the Padres’ insistence the past two years that Vásquez has the stuff to win consistently in the major leagues is possibly being validated.
Machado’s streak
Manny Machado continues to roll.
He went 2-for-2 with two walks last night to extend his hitting streak to 14 games.
The streak is tied for the second longest of his career and the longest in his seven seasons with the Padres, and history suggests it is probably just the start of something bigger.
All four times he has put together a hitting streak of at least 12 games since 2015, that streak has been part of a stretch of at least 28 games in which he posts an OPS over 1.100.
This is what he does. He is notorious for going on runs of a month or longer once or twice a season in which he can hardly be stopped.
In fact, for the last four seasons he has put together a stretch of at least two months in which he had an OPS of .849 or higher.
This 14-game streak, during which he is batting .480 (24-for-50) with an 1.179 OPS, is also the longest active hitting streak in the majors.
I wrote this spring (here) about how Fernando Tatis Jr. and Machado are as predictable as any players in major league baseball in of what they are doing when they are hot and what they are doing when they are not.
When they are comfortable at the plate, they are simply not chasing pitches out of the strike zone. And that virtually always translates into a hot streak.
Machado has chased at a 21.5% rate over the course of his streak.
“Just keep it simple,” Machado said last night. “See ball, hit ball, man. That’s as easy as you can make it.”
He has been even more disciplined lately swinging at just four of the 40 pitches he has seen outside the strike zone over the past five games. He has drawn five walks in those five games.
“You’re talking about a dangerous hitter who has gotten even more dangerous, because now he’s just not chasing,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “He’s not going to get himself out. So guys are going to run from him a little bit, rightfully so. The guys behind you can hurt you, obviously, but he’s just not going to get himself out. He’s going to make you do something in the zone. When you’ve got that kind of talent with that kind of consistent swing that’s consistently in the zone you’re seeing what you’re seeing, and that’s a guy just usually driving the ball to all parts of the field. It’s really, a special thing.”
Comfy Croney
Jake Cronenworth is batting .333 (9-for-27) and has reached base exactly half the 38 times he has been to the plate during a nine-game on-base streak.
That streak includes three games before he was sidelined for a month with a fractured rib.
After going 2-for-3 with a walk last night, he has reached base safely in 16 of the 18 games he has played this season and has a .437 OBP.
I wrote this spring (here) how Cronenworth tends to be streaky. Still, this is a rare kind of heater.
Only three times before (once in each of his first three seasons) has he had a higher OBP over a stretch of at least 18 games at any point in a season. And he had never begun a season as hot as this.
There are two related statistics that illustrate how locked in Cronenworth is.
He is chasing at a 15% rate this season, almost nine percentage points lower than he did over the first five seasons of his career. In six games since returning from the injured list, he has swung at just five of the 57 pitches (8.7%) he has seen outside the zone.
And he has gone to a three-ball count in 39.4% of his plate appearances (28 of 71) this season. That is almost twice as frequently as he did from 2020 through ‘24.
“I’m just on time,” Cronenworth said last night. “I’m not going outside the zone that I feel comfortable going in. I’m going after the pitches I know I can handle. If a guy paints a couple fastballs in, it’s not the end of the world. I can still get to a 3-2 count. .. It’s being comfortable and on time.”
Off and running
Cronenworth stole a base last night!
It was his first since Sept. 1, 2024, and just the 22nd of his career.
While Cronenworth is not exceedingly fast, he isn’t slow. He gets some of the best leads in the majors, and he is among the smartest baserunners on the team.
So his lack of steals is somewhat surprising.
“It’s there,” he said of his base-stealing ability. “It’s more just communication with Dave (Macias, the Padres’ first base coach)and picking the right spots to go.”
Outta here
Bogaerts is off to a rough start for the second straight season. His frustration has been compounded by his hitting a number of balls hard recently that were right at fielders.
His .288 batting average on balls in play is the lowest of his career. And before last night’s homer, just two of the previous seven balls he had put in play at 100 mph or greater had been hits.
“Got one where they can’t reach it,” he said.
Bogaerts, who is batting .243, is tied with Cronenworth, Machado, Luis Arraez and Elias Díaz for fourth on the team with three home runs and tied with Machado for third with 20 RBIs.
Last night was his third three-RBI game of the season. That is three more than he had all last season and one fewer than he had in 2023.
Lockridge comes through
Not every time a lineup change is made should it be considered a blaring siren.
But given that Jason Heyward is batting .103 (3-for-29) over his past 11 games, it was notable last night that Brandon Lockridge got the start in left field over the left-handed-hitting Heyward even though right-hander Kyle Hendricks was on the mound for the Angels.
It was just the third game this season for which Heyward was healthy that he was not in the lineup against a right-hander. One of the other two times, left-handed-hitting Gavin Sheets started in his place.
“He’s taking good at bats,” Shildt said of Lockridge. “He can run. He’s playing good defense. His defense is a part of it. Hendricks is not an overly splitty guy, so we gave Lock a shot at it. The guy at the end for them was not overly splitty guy either. So that was part of the equation. But just liking the at-bats overall. … He’s getting the benefit of the doubt and he’s earned it.”
Shildt referred to Hendricks and right-handed reliever Jose Fermin not being significantly better against right-handers. In fact, Fermin has reverse splits.
That Lockridge drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single against Fermin in the eighth inning probably won’t hurt his chances of getting another start against a righty.
Answering for it
I wrote in Tuesday’s newsletter about how it was perfectly on-brand for Jackson Merrill to not talk about his fantastic game after a Padres loss.
Also completely in character was him having no problem talking after last night’s win about the ball he misjudged in the second inning and his allowing that it probably was the reason the Angels scored at all.
On a fly ball to center field by Taylor Ward, the ball did something those hit at Petco Park usually don’t do, especially at night this time of year.
“It carried,” Merrill said. “It never does that here.”
It was clear from the start that Merrill figured he was going to easily get under the ball. But then he had to just keep drifting back. At the last second, he jumped and just missed the ball as it sailed past his glove and landed on the other side of the wall.
“If I’d have had a better jump,” Merrill said, “I would have caught it.”
Taylor Ward – Los Angeles Angels (10)
pic.twitter.com/ChnUDoGQct— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) May 15, 2025
Taking care of business
The Padres avenged a sweep at the hands of the Angels last season by winning the series.
That would be utterly meaningless if not for the fact that the June 2024 series in Anaheim was a contributing factor in the Padres turning around last season and setting a lasting tone.
The Padres’ 32-33 record after that series included a 15-20 mark against teams with records of .500 or below.
Players spoke publicly and privately after that about how unacceptable it was and that they knew a playoff team had to do better against bad teams.
The Padres would go 31-8 the rest of the way against teams that finished the season with a .500 record or worse. They were 61-36 overall after that day.
They are now 14-5 against teams at .500 or below this season. (The change from yesterday is due to the Braves having lost and fallen to 21-22.)
Tidbits
- Yu Darvish could re the Padres as soon as next week in Toronto after working an efficient four innings in his first (only?) rehab start last night in Las Vegas. You can read Jeff Sander’s story (here) about how Darvish did in a Triple-A game.
- Tatis’ hitting streak came to an end at seven games when he went 0-for-4 last night. He was intentionally walked in the seventh inning, which means he does have an eight-game on-base streak intact. He is reaching base at a .368 clip in that span.
- Merrill went 0-for-4 for a second straight night. That s for two of the three times he has gone hitless games in 17 games this season.
- The run Machado scored was his 500th with the Padres. He will likely Dave Winfield (599) by next season. How far ahead is Tony Gwynn for the Padres record? Machado would need to average about 100 runs a year, a mark he has achieved three times in his 11 full seasons, to get the 884 required to Gwynn.
- Arraez has not missed on any of the 47 swings he has taken in the past six games. Sometimes you just have to stop and appreciate his uniqueness. Arraez’s 93.3% rate over the past seven seasons is the highest in MLB and 19 percentage points higher than the league average.
All right, that’s it for me.
No game today, so no newsletter tomorrow. The next one will be in your inbox on Saturday after tomorrow night’s game against the Mariners.
Check our Padres page later today for Jeff Sanders’ feature on Stephen Kolek, who has not allowed a run through 14⅓ innings in his first two major league starts. Kolek on Friday will go against the team that did not protect him in the 2023 Rule 5 draft, allowing the Padres to acquire him.
