Good morning,
There were several plays that turned last night’s game in a direction few would have predicted when it was three outs old.
But this is the the one play that explained so much about the Padres:
With Jake Croneworth on first base after a single in the second inning, Tyler Wade hit a grounder into the hole on the right side that caromed off the glove of a diving Ronny Simon, the Marlins second baseman, and rolled into foul territory.
Cronenworth stepped on second and kept going to third, where he rounded the bag hard while looking at Simon.
Simon was also looking at him.
“He’s far down the right field line,” Cronenworth said. “I’m going to force him to throw the ball home. You never know what can happen.”
What happened is Simon held the ball until Cronenworth got several feet past third base seemingly in full throttle. Then the rookie fired home with a throw that was wide and bounced away from catcher Nick Fortes. No one was covering home, and Cronenworth, who had stopped for two seconds, resumed his sprint and scored standing up.
That play is why there is almost no way to diminish what the Padres did last night.
How they built a comeback from a six-run deficit made it hardly even matter that they were playing the Marlins, who are the youngest team in the major leagues and had a second baseman commit three errors and make another misplay that helped the Padres to four runs in a span of three innings.
Last night was about how the Padres played, which was virtually flawless on defense, persistent at the plate, relentless on the basepaths and resilient on the mound.
You can read Jeff Sanders’ game story (here) for the rundown on the Padres’ comeback to an 8-6 victory after the Marlins scored six runs against Stephen Kolek in the top of the first inning.
The Marlins did not score again while the Padres scored in the first five innings, taking the lead in the last of those and adding another run in the eighth.
“Stephen could have easily (been) like, ‘Oh, not my night.’” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “(But) he went out and guys came in like, ‘Let’s just score … and have you just go out and throw up a zero.’ We score, he threw up a zero, we score, he threw up a zero. And we score every inning and we keep it right there. Math says we win. And it ended up happening.”
Jeff focused in his game story on how Kolek became the first MLB pitcher in 18 years to get a win after allowing six runs in the first inning of a game.
That was an impressive effort, as was what three of a weary bullpen did to close out the victory. (We will get into that later in the newsletter.)
Now, let’s dive deeper into how the Padres accomplished what they did last night and have accomplished quite a bit the past two seasons under Shildt.
The Padres have won three straight games for the first time since their six-game winning streak ended on May 6, and they have come back from two runs down, three runs down and six runs down to do so.
They have won seven times this season after trailing by two or more runs.
They did so 22 times last season.
They did it eight times in 2023, 16 times in 2022 and 16 times in 2021.
So that is 11 fewer times in the past 255 games than they did the previous 486 games.
The rest of the league is averaging five such wins this season, and 10 teams have no more than four.
It cannot be entirely dismissed that the Marlins are not good.
One of their two runs in last night’s second inning was aided by Simon’s error, and their game-tying run in the fourth was courtesy of his two errors. They also scored one of their runs in the third inning on a play a more experienced player than Simon probably makes.
Padres players expressed sympathy for the 25-year-old Simon, who is playing in his 19th MLB game, and offered encouraging words for him after the game.
His night was emblematic of the challenges the Marlins face. They had four rookies in their lineup last night.
I wrote in yesterday’s newsletter about how fortunate the Padres were in Monday’s 4-3 victory that a Marlins error afforded them an extra out to get two runs in the fourth inning and a wild pitch allowed Wade to make a mad dash home to score the winning run in the 11th.
But it must be said, too, that the Padres play a certain way that enhances their chances of pulling off a comeback or winning a game in which they don’t hit all that often.
(Yes, they just endured a six-game losing streak in which their offense struggled. But they also have eight victories in which they had six or fewer hits, tied for fourth most in the majors.)
As much as anything, the Padres put the ball in play.
Their 19% strikeout rate is tied with the Blue Jays for lowest in the majors, and they put the ball in play in 70% of their plate appearances, more frequently than all but the Royals (71%).
“We’re a complete offense,” Shildt said. “… This game can be so challenging, but we consistently put our best foot forward offensively with our machine of how we look at doing things with our approach. Don’t strike out, put the ball in play … run the bases smart and aggressive. And that is the best we can do, and that’s usually pretty good.”
What did that look like last night?
“You saw a lot of power of friendship in that game,” Jackson Merrill said. “It wasn’t just one or two big hits that got us back in it. There was consistently singles, taking advantage of mistakes. Exposable moments played into our favor. We didn’t give anything away, and they gave stuff away. We had to take advantage and play baseball.”
After Fernando Tatis Jr. homered in the first inning and Cronenworth enticed the error in the second, the Padres scored twice in the third with some nifty baserunning and help from another gaffe by Simon that was originally ruled an error but later changed to a single.
Manny Machado led off with a single, went to second on a walk by Merrill and tagged up and sprinted to third thanks to a good read on Gavin Sheets’ lineout to right field.
Then Xander Bogaerts sent a grounder up the middle right at Simon that scored Machado. It should also have been the second out. But Merrill, who had taken off for second on the pitch, slowed down in front of Simon, who had the ball go under his glove and into center field as Merrill ran to third.
“To be honest, I was looking at it and I was like, If I keep going, it’s going to hit me,” said Merrill, who scored on a sacrifice fly by Cronenworth. “So I slowed down, and I think it messed him up a little bit.”
The Padres got another unearned run in the fourth inning when Simon committed errors on successive grounders by Wade and Tatis, and Luis Arraez drove in Wade with a single to tie the game.
A one-out single by Cronenworth and two-out singles by Tatis and Arraez made it 7-6 in the fifth to complete the comeback before Merrill added some insurance with a homer in the eighth.
Playing the hits. pic.twitter.com/bkCOIWWWWP
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) May 28, 2025
“It’s the style we play,” Cronenworth said. “Yes, there’s errors. But it’s also taking advantage of those errors. It’s the way we run the bases and putting pressure on them to make mistakes. We saw that tonight.”
We’ve seen it a lot. The Padres have scored 32 unearned runs, third most in the major leagues.
The Padres are 31-22, which is the seventh-best record in the major leagues. Their run differential ranks 13th, which is a little scary. They would do well to continue the power surge that has seen them hit a home run every 21.1 at-bats over the past six games, which is almost twice as frequently as their first 47 games (one every 38 at-bats).
But save for that recent losing streak, their general relentlessness and adherence to winning on the margins has worked pretty well.
“It’s been really good for the last several days and, really, good for the last year-plus,” Shildt said. “And we’ll continue to do it and be intentional about it.”
Rising to the occasion
Closer Robert Suarez and set-up man Jason Adam had both pitched the previous two days and four of the previous five.
So the Padres had to secure last night’s two-run victory without their two highest-leverage relievers.
No problem. Or virtually no problem. There were only a couple brief moments of stress, as Sean Reynolds, Yuki Matsui and Jeremiah Estrada allowed five baserunners over 3⅔ scoreless innings.
Reynolds, who relieved Kolek with one out and a runner on first in the sixth inning, was working three days after throwing a career-high 57 pitches at the start of Saturday’s bullpen game in Atlanta. He ended the sixth on three pitches and was helped by a magnificent double play started by Arraez in the seventh.
After giving up a single, he was replaced by Matsui, who walked a batter before ending the seventh with a fly ball out and then got two outs around a double in the eighth.
That is when Estrada came in, needed just one pitch to end the eighth and worked around a one-out single to earn his first save of the season and second of his career.
Down 6-0 before getting to bat. No Suarez. No Adam. A Padres win! pic.twitter.com/3hnfRP6bNR
— Talking Friars (@TalkingFriars) May 28, 2025
“They know they can do it,” pitching coach Ruben Niebla said. “It’s a callous grower.”
The Padres bullpen, which allowed 51 runs (41 earned) in 40 innings over 13 games from May 6 through May 22, appears to be back on track.
The team’s relievers have not allowed a run in four of the past five games. That is something they had not done since April and did just twice that month.
And this is a group that had an MLB-low 1.68 ERA on May 5.
The only game in the past five in which the bullpen did leak was Saturday, when they yielded four runs in eight innings.
“I talk about the long term,” Niebla said. “At the end of the season, the bulk of the work, what is that going to look like? The consistency and everything we do in preparation. We stay consistent, we’re going to have more (good) games. This season is not an easy one. It’s a hard one. Sometimes you lose some battles. … But they picked us up today.”
How did he do that?
Tatis reached down with a short swing and punched a ball 339 feet down the right field line and into the seats just on the fair side of the foul pole for a home run in the first inning.
It was the kind of hit you had to watch several times to believe, as the sweeper from Max Meyer that sailed into the bottom third of the zone and in the middle of the plate was far too inside for a right-handed batter to hit that far to the opposite field.
“I looked at the video (and) was like, ‘How did that happen?’” Tatis said. “But blessed from the Man above. And, you know, definitely hard work (and) good help from the hitting coaches.”
Fernando Tatis Jr. – San Diego Padres (13)
pic.twitter.com/MxKAU0qogm— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) May 28, 2025
It was Tatis’ fifth home run in 16 games (66 at-bats) and 13th home home run of the season, which is eighth in the National League.
He finished the night 2-for-5, his first multi-hit game since May 10 and just his third multi-hit game in the 23 he has played this month. He had multiple hits 13 times in the season’s first 29 games.
Tatis was batting .181 in the 20-game stretch leading up to last night, the second-worst stretch that long in his six big-league seasons.
“In baseball you never have the right answer,” Tatis said last night. “This game is just rough and tough.”
Feast or Famine
Even the best need a reminder sometimes.
For Arraez, he leaned on encouraging conversations with his wife the past few days. And then yesterday afternoon, he got a nudge from Padres hitting coach Victor Rodriguez.
“He said, ‘You have three batting titles for a reason,’” Arraez recalled last night. “He’s right. It’s because I’m a good hitter. I just needed to keep doing my routine and play the game like I can.”
Arraez stopped a four-game hitless streak last night by going 3-for-5 with a double and two RBI singles.
It was his ninth game with at least three hits, tied with the Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan for most in MLB.
Arraez also has gone hitless in 17 starts and has had four hitless stretches of 11 or more at-bats.
Thanks in part to a .283 batting average on balls in play, which is 50 points lower than at the end of any of his previous six seasons, Arraez is batting .289 through 47 games. That is the second-lowest average he has had this far into a season, three points better than his average 47 games into 2021.
“I needed to change the page,” Arraez said. “I just need to keep working and doing my routine. I don’t need to do too much. I just need to play the game. This game is super hard. Sometimes I push myself too hard. Today I said, ‘Hey, relax. Go out there and play.’”
Wade’s chance?
Wade started in left field last night for the first time this season, going 1-for-4, driving in their second run and scoring their sixth run.
Wade is viewed as part of the rotating cast of fill-ins at the spot until the Padres can find a more productive option (most likely via trade) than they have had this season with Jason Heyward as their primary left fielder.
I wrote (here) in spring training how much the Padres value Wade as a winning piece, the kind of player who can affect games because of a skillset that includes speed and savvy on the bases and versatility in the field.
But the reality is that the abundance of role players such as Wade fade when asked to start game after game.
Wade did early in 2024 while playing third base regularly while Machado was limited to serving as designated hitter as he worked back from elbow surgery.
But he has not faded yet this season.
When he started 14 of the Padres’ 15 games from April 14 to May 2, mostly filling in for the injured Merrill in center field, Wade batted .310/.420/.381 in 52 plate appearances.
For the season, he is batting .278/.381/.333 in 18 starts.
This is what Arraez said while talking about the Padres offense: “We put a lot of pressure on them. Especially T-Wade. He’s electric. When he gets a chance to play baseball, he just does his job.”
Is it so preposterous that Wade would get a shot to be their regular left fielder against right-handed starters?
Padres left fielders have an MLB-low .500 OPS as a group this season, and their .185 batting average is second worst.
Tidbits
- Bogaerts raised his batting average 11 points to .243 by going 3-for-4 last night. His .232 average entering the game was his lowest ever 52 games into a season.
- Arraez’s first-inning double was his 900th career hit.
- Merrill’s home run was his fifth of the season but first in 67 at-bats. He hit four homers in his first 63 at-bats.
- Merrill also walked twice last night, the first time he has done so this season and the second time he has done so in 184 career games. Merrill’s 5% walk rate is eighth lowest in MLB among the 110 players who have at least 700 plate appearances since the start of last season.
- The Padres were 4-for-17 with runners in scoring position last night. They did not have more than two such hits in any of their previous 14 games, a span in which they hit .120 (11-for-92) with runners in scoring position. The Padres are 15-0 when getting at least three hits with runners in scoring position. They are 12-0 when having at least 12 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
- Elias Díaz was 0-for-4 and was the only Padres player to not reach base last night. Díaz (5-for-37) and fellow catcher Martín Maldonado (0-for-12) are hitting .102 over the past 14 games.
- The Padres’13 hits last night were their most since they tied a team record for hits in a nine-inning game with 24 against the Rockies on May 10. They had not had more than nine hits in a game since then. They had an MLB-leading 20 games with 10 or more hits as of May 10.
- The Padres had not scored seven runs in any of their previous 14 games.
- Kolek is the first pitcher since 1999 to allow six earned runs in the first inning and get a win. It has happened just four times since earned runs became an official stat in both the National League and American League in 1913.
All right, that’s it for me. Early game today (1:10 p.m. PT).
Talk to you tomorrow.
