Good morning,
Mike Shildt was finished with his postgame media gathering on Friday night and was beginning the process of decompressing after another long, tense game.
“Looks like that’s how we’re going to have to win,” he said.
Then he laughed. Because there was nothing else to do. And because winning close games is better than the alternative.
Just recall the 2023 season for the alternative.
You can read my game story (here) about how the Padres beat the Brewers 1-0 yesterday.
It was the Padres’ 10th consecutive win by one or two runs. They are 10-7 over their past five series (plus one game). And all but two games in that span have been decided by one or two runs.
That is wild. That is exhausting.
“Yeah,” Xander Bogaerts said wearily. “It’s a lot. I’m not gonna lie. … If you’re playing focused and locked in every pitch, you should feel that way. And us having a long road trip, tight games, every game, coming out of the game just …”
And now, here come the Dodgers!
(Read here about that three-game series, which begins today.)
“Every series has been — it’s been getting tougher and tougher for us,” Manny Machado said yesterday afternoon. “And we’ve been kind of exceeding those expectations. So, you know, continue to do that.”
Whether the Padres can keep playing games of this type and win at the necessary pace is debatable. It is a lot to ask of everyone, especially the bullpen.
But we should not let this time without giving respect where it is most due.
We can talk later about Machado, whose 425-foot home run in the seventh inning was the only scoring in yesterday’s game.
But the heroes of this stretch for the Padres are the team’s pitchers.
And we can consider them somewhat unlikely heroes without it being a backhanded compliment.
The starting rotation is down Michael King the last three times through, and Dylan Cease is not meeting expectations.
The young starters who make up the majority of the rotation behind Nick Pivetta and Cease are giving more than could reasonably have been expected.
Yesterday, Ryan Bergert followed the lead of Randy Vásquez on Friday and Stephen Kolek on Saturday and did not surrender a run while he was in the game.
In his second career start, Bergert allowed one hit and walked four in 5⅓ innings.
That left a bullpen to cover 3⅔ innings without the services Jeremiah Estrada and Adrián Morejón (due to their recent workload).
Padres relievers have worked at least three innings in 15 of the past 17 games. And , almost every one of those has been within a run or two.
It is stressful outing after stressful outing. And almost every time, no matter which relievers are called on, they are getting the job done.
The bullpen has been responsible for losing four leads in the past 17 games, including one in extra innings. But a reliever has also earned the win in eight of the team’s 10 victories in that span, and the bullpen has put up a collective 1.61 ERA while stranding 25 of 35 inherited runners.
That is the third lowest bullpen ERA in the major leagues during that time , and the Padres’ bullpen has thrown 11⅓ more innings than either of the two bullpens with a lower ERA in that stretch (since May 22).
Yesterday, Yuki Matsui stranded the two runners he inherited from Bergert and got the final two outs of the sixth.
Sean Reynolds, working with a slim lead later than the sixth inning for the first time in his career, got the first two outs of the seventh and Wandy Peralta the other out that inning.
Jason Adam, making his MLB-leading 33rd appearance, pitched a scoreless eighth.
Robert Suarez converted his MLB-leading 21st save (in 23 opportunities).
The Padres’ bullpen has faced the second-most batters in late and close situations. A Padres reliever’s first batter of a game has been in a high-leverage situation an MLB-leading 96 times. A Padres relief pitcher has worked on zero days’ rest 46 times, second most in the majors. The Padres are the only team with six relievers that have made at least 27 appearances.
Give credit also to Shildt and pitching coach Ruben Niebla for how they have managed this staff, especially in a stretch where the Padres have played 10 straight days and 19 of the past 20 days.
The Padres bullpen went through a period in the first half of May in which it lost four leads and allowed more runs (31) in a six-game stretch than any bullpen in team history.
And it was just Saturday that Adam and rookie David Morgan gave up leads in a 4-3 loss.
That happens. But this bullpen appears to be the strength it was anticipated to be.
“It’s a special group,” Adam said. “It’s so fun to be a part of. One of our mottos is ‘Cover and move.’ That’s what we do. That’s what we try to do whenever we’re called on, try to put up a zero and give our team a chance to win.”
The term “cover and move” is a military tactical term that was introduced to the team last year by Shildt to emphasize teamwork and mutual . Suarez reminded Adam of it after a game during the last homestand when Adam could not get out of the eighth inning and Suarez had to come in for a four-out save.
“I was like ‘Brother, sorry to make you come out there.’” Adam said. “He goes, ‘Hey, cover and move.’ And I thought that was the coolest response out of our leader.”
Now, about that offense
The Padres have scored more than three runs in just six of their past 16 games.
They are batting .218 and averaging 3.4 runs a game in that span. Those numbers rank 26th and 27th, respectively, in MLB over that span (since May 23).
And despite being outscored by two runs in those 16 games, they are 10-6.
“Can we do a better job of scoring runs? Yeah,” Jake Cronenworth said. “I think we’ll get there. These are kind of the style of games we’ve been playing. We’ve run into some really good pitchers that have had some really, really good outings against us. It is what it is.”
I wrote the other day (here) about the reality of the Padres having faced some exceptional starting pitching the past few weeks.
Shildt, who often says he doesn’t keep up with “the outside world” but seems to have a lot of theories regarding what is being said about his team, made this observation yesterday:
“I know people are like, ‘Well, we’ve got to score. We got to score.’ And, you know, I hear that part, and our guys hear it.”
They are living it.
“We know as an offense where we are right now,” Bogaerts said. “It’s not the best place we want to be.”
We can point out all we want that Bogaerts continues to struggle and that Padres left fielders and catchers rank near the bottom of the major leagues.
But the offense is not going to get revving as long as the top two batters in the lineup continue to be stuck.
Lead-off batter Fernando Tatis Jr. is hitting .259/.332/.461 through 62 games. The average and on-base percentage are the lowest of his career at this point in a season, and the slugging percentage is second lowest behind last year (.432).
Arraez is batting .276 with a .310 OBP through 58 games. Both numbers are career lows at this point in a season.
The other hero
Machado fouled off a cutter in the heart of the strike zone on the fifth pitch of his at-bat against Dan Zastryzny in the seventh inning.
That made the count full.
The Brewers left-hander, who had just entered the game, then fired a 93 mph fastball over the middle of the plate and thigh high.
Machado ripped his longest home run of the season.
“They didn’t miss, man,” Machado said of the Brewers pitchers, against whom he went 4-for-12 with two home runs and a walk this weekend. “… They pinpointed, they mixed it up. I mean, they pitched really well. Just to get a mistake, I got two mistakes. I took advantage of it. I didn’t get many all series.”
Machado has homered seven times in the past 16 games. Four have put the Padres ahead. One has tied a game.
Machado began the seven-game road trip 0-for-4 last Monday and has gone 11-for-24 with three home runs in the six games since. This is his fourth hitting streak of at least six games this season.
His .318 batting average ranks third in the National League. His .897 OPS is ninth.
“I say he’s in a good place,” Shildt said. “Manny is just good, right? He just stays in a good place.”
Tardy
Brewers starter Freddy Peralta walked Tatis and Machado and threw just seven strikes among his 17 pitches in yesterday’s first inning before Jackson Merrill came to bat.
Neither of Peralta’s pitches to Merrill were in the strike zone. Merrill swung at both, grounding the second up the middle to shortstop Joey Ortiz, who stepped on second base and threw to first base to complete an inning-ending double play.
Merrill has swung at 45% of the pitches he has seen outside the strike zone over the past 11 games. That is nearly 10 percentage points higher than the rate at which he was chasing before this run.
“I’m just not seeing it,” Merrill said. “I mean, obviously. … I’ve just been late. Being late makes you not see it. I’m trying to get on time.”
Merrill has early in his career been able to have some success outside the zone. But he is just 2-for-13 on at-bats that end with his swinging at a pitch outside the zone over the past 11 games.
Perhaps nowhere have his struggles shown up more than on the first pitch.
Through the first 161 games of his career, from the start of last season through the first 15 games of 2025, Merrill was among the major league leaders with a .468 batting average and 1.394 OPS when putting the first pitch of a plate appearance into play.
Among those first-pitch swings were 17 balls he put in play on swings at pitches out of the zone. He was 8-for-16 with a sacrifice bunt.
His relative lack of plate discipline has not ever been the problem it has been lately.
Pitchers are using Merrill’s aggressiveness against him, and he has been uncharacteristically slow to make a change.
“That’s on me to adjust and me to know, ‘Hey, if you’re not getting that first pitch …’” he said. “They’re not going to throw it to you.”
He has in recent games intentionally taken the first pitch of some plate appearance. He did so twice in his final three at-bats yesterday.
Merrill is batting .209 (9-for-43) with four doubles and no home runs over the past 11 games, and in that time his season average has dropped from .333 to .299. He has walked once in his past 44 plate appearances, which is about a third as often as he was walking before.
As Merrill pointed out earlier in the season, “I’m a hitter, not a walker.”
But he has become a little bit more of a swinger-and-misser.
Merrill’s ability to put bat on ball is what makes a 35% chase rate acceptable. But he is missing at nearly a 30% rate on all swings the past 11 games, almost 10 percentage points higher than previously. This, while swinging at more than 64% of the pitches he sees, five percentage points higher than he was previously.
“When you’re late, you can’t see,” Merrill said. “Your swing gets rushed, you roll over. When you can see and you’re down and ready to go, there is nothing left to do but swing. When you’re late, you’re trying to speed up and catch up to the pitch. You’re going to chase more because you’re going to see it as good.”
“I’m not pressing. I haven’t been pressing. I’ve been fine. … I just haven’t been seeing the ball. I’ve been missing the ball.”
Tidbits
- The Padres have done something that has been done just 18 times since 1901. Yesterday was their fourth victory this season when having exactly three hits. The record of five such wins is shared by the 1968 Twins and 2014 Cardinals. The Padres still have a chance to do something no team has ever done by going undefeated in three-hit games.
- Check out Jeff Sanders’ piece (here) in which he talked to Padres pitchers about which of their teammates’ pitches they would like to be able to throw. It is super interesting.
- Cronenworth was 1-for-3 yesterday and has reached base in 16 of the past 17 games. His .373 on-base percentage is his highest 40 games into any of his six seasons.
- The Padres were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position yesterday, their 16th time going hitless with runners in scoring position this season. That is more than all but the Orioles (16), Pirates (18), Rangers (18) and Rockies (22). The Padres are 5-11 when they don’t get a hit with a runner in scoring position.
- Here is the updated list of pitchers who have worked in the Padres’ MLB-leading 12 shutout victories:
All right, that’s it for me. I got stuck in Dallas on my way back from Milwaukee. It’s going to be a long Monday.
Talk to you tomorrow.
