Good morning,
The Padres probably are not going to beat the Dodgers very many (any) of the seven times they play them in an 11-day span next month by getting five hits and going 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
That doesn’t matter right now.
They weren’t playing the Dodgers last night. They were playing the Marlins, who seem like a promising young team but are nonetheless presently not very good.
So the Padres seized on the opportunities given them, scored three unearned runs and won for the third time in four days.
You can read in my game story (here) about how it went down, right up through Tyler Wade’s dash home on a wild pitch to win the game in the 11th inning.
As Wade said, “Any win is great.”
But it has to be said up front that the Padres were fortunate last night. They simply must be better soon.
They are batting .198 over the past 10 games, a span in which they are 3-7. (Those three victories have come in the past four games. The Padres’ average in those wins is .198 as well, and that is not sustainable unless Manny Machado and Gavin Sheets continue to hit a home run every 8.5 and 4.7 at-bats, respectively.)
We spend a lot of time trying to keep things in perspective and appreciating context in this space. It is absolutely true that the best teams go through slumps.
Six of the past 10 World Series champions (not including 2020) have endured 10-game stretches in which they hit .198 or lower. And all but one of those 10 (the 2018 Red Sox) went 3-7 or worse over a 10-game span at some point in the season they won the title.
But we have to be real about how bad it has been for the Padres the past week-and-a-half.
If this keeps up, the Padres could take a big hit in the NL West and wild-card races. And soon. Starting next week, they play the Giants and Dodgers 11 times in 17 games.
The Padres’ ineptitude at the plate almost didn’t fly last night against the team with the third-worst record in the National League. (The Pirates, with the second-worst record in the NL, come to town next).
I have pointed out several times that playoff teams build their records by winning a lot against teams with losing records. And teams with losing records often help their opponent to victories.
You win games however you can.
But there are a number of troubling things transpiring at the same time for the Padres:
- Fernando Tatis Jr. is in a slump unlike almost anything he has endured in his career, batting .181 batting over the past 20 games. Only a stretch in the summer of 2023, when he hit .180 over 27 games, could be considered worse.
- Xander Bogaerts’ .232 batting average (worst in his career through 52 games) and .654 OPS (second worst) in the middle of the order are devastating for a team built on “ing the baton” on offense.
- Padres catchers Elias Díaz (5-for-33 with one double) and Martín Maldonado (0-for-12) are batting .111 in 13 games since May 12.
- Sheets, who has played there twice, is the only Padres left fielder with a hit in the past seven games.
- The Padres are batting .074 (5-for-68) with runners in scoring position over the past 10 games. All of those hits with runners on second and/or third have come in the past five games, during which time they are batting .135 (5-for-37) with runners in scoring position.
Last night’s win was impressive in a lot of ways. The Padres took advantage of an error in the fourth inning to score two runs. Manny Machado tied the game with a home run in the eighth. Four relievers worked 4⅔ scoreless innings at the end. Shildt made a prescient move to insert Wade as a pinch-runner for Machado, and Wade came through.
However, it’s not really any sort of hard-core analysis to say the Padres need to hit better.
Wade made it
The Padres have all sorts of plans for Wade every day.
He has played six positions (plus pitcher) for them since the start of last year. He can bunt. He can run, and he knows how and when to run.
“It’s constantly as the game goes like, ‘Where does he fit?’” manager Mike Shildt said. “And a lot of nights he doesn’t fit. But when he fits, he fits, and he fits well.”
He fit on third base with one out in the bottom of the 11th inning of a tie ballgame last night.
That is where Shildt put him in a sort of all-or-nothing move, as it was Machado that Wade was pinch-running for.
Shildt had kept Machado on second base for the first batter, because Machado is exceptionally capable of scoring from second on a base hit. (I wrote about that just yesterday.)
Trying to get home from third can be far different in that there are myriad bang-bang plays that can happen.
Marlins manager Clayton McCullough pulled his center fielder and employed a five-man infield after Sheets’ grounder to the right side moved Machado to third.
Shildt certainly wanted Wade’s savvy and speed in for a potential ground ball. But the breaking ball Marlins pitcher Cade Gibson bounced is one of the things Shildt had in mind as well.
“Just a chance to get Wadey in,” Shildt said. “He’s really, really good. He’s really particularly good at reading balls like that. And he’s really good at reading balls on the ground, on , with timing and speed.”
The Marlins were holding Wade fairly close to the bag, but he crept off with each pitch to Jake Cronenworth.
He said he had a feeling what was coming on 1-2 pitch, which gave him even more of a reason to be on alert and gain a previous half-second.
“He threw a bunch of fastballs in a row right there,” Wade said. “So I (thought), ‘This is a good time for a breaking ball.’ I was just anticipating it.”
Wade took several quick steps toward home with the pitch, halted for an instant when the ball bounced off catcher Nick Fortes’ glove only to assess where the ball was going, and then took off.
“It was closer than I thought,” Wade acknowledged later. “When I started running, I was like, ‘Oh, I gotta get going here.’ But I was trusting my instincts there. … I was just trying to take advantage of that right there.”
The @Padres walk it off in wild fashion in the 11th inning! pic.twitter.com/I2wTbCWFly
— MLB (@MLB) May 27, 2025
Picking up the pace
Machado had just three homers through Thursday, the fewest he had ever hit through the first 48 games of a season.
He has hit three since.
The first came in the ninth inning Friday, providing the deciding run in a 2-1 victory over the Braves. The second came in Sunday’s eighth inning and served as some padding in a 5-3 victory.
Last night, he sent a pitch off the ribbon board that fronts the second deck of seats beyond left field that tied the game 3-3 in the eighth inning.
Manny Machado – San Diego Padres (6) pic.twitter.com/kC7WG002J9
— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) May 27, 2025
This was predictable. Hitting coach Victor Rodriguez pointed that out over the weekend, which I included in yesterday’s newsletter.
This is what Machado does. And he knows it.
“I’ve been doing it for a long time,” Machado said. “You just know how it is. It’s a long season. … It was gonna be there at the end of the day. It’s a matter of making good . I’ve been making good , just right at people. That’s the way baseball goes sometimes. It definitely does feel good they’re going (out of) the ballpark right now.”
Machado is the only player in the major leagues to have hit at least 28 home runs in each of the past nine full seasons.
Machado’s hard-hit percentage (54%) and barrel percentage (11.8%) are higher than at the end of any of the previous nine seasons.
His .319 batting average ranks fourth in the National League, and his .888 OPS is tied for 11th.
After going 2-for-24 with a double and a walk during the Padres’ six-game losing streak from May 16 through this past Thursday, Machado is 7-for-14 with three home runs, a double and three walks in the past four games.
“When this game is hard and you have a little bit of any kind of issue, and you know who you are, like Manny does,” Shildt said. “You don’t have to search very far to get back to the greatness that is Manny Machado.”
Got in, helped win
David Morgan was with the Padres for a week earlier in the season but never got to make his major league debut and was optioned to Triple-A on May 4.
He was recalled again Sunday, and with multiple relievers still down after a busy weekend in Atlanta, last night was Morgan’s time.
Not only did he pitch, it was in a crucial spot — in the eighth inning with the Padres down by a run.
Morgan replaced Wandy Peralta with one out and retired Augustín Ramirez, the Marlins No.2 batter, on one pitch on a line drive to Cronenworth at first base. He then got Eric Wagaman on a pop-up to second.
“That was awesome,” the 25-year-old right-hander said. “Dream come true. It was hard the last time I was here — the dream being that close to me and not getting to happen. But today, getting to pitch in a closer game, late in the game, leverage situation, that’s what I’m used to. I’ve been doing that in the minor leagues. So I think that actually kind of took the nerves off.
“Every time I pitched in the minor leagues, there was always a little bit of nerves, because I’m trying to make it to the big leagues. And today I wasn’t trying to be anywhere else. So there was no extra nerves, no pressure on me. It was like, do what I do and just I’m here for a reason.”
The buzz
As Shildt was addressing the media in the Padres dugout yesterday afternoon, a swarm of bees descended on the seating area behind home plate.
Swarm of bees! 🐝 They love that home plate camera. #Padres pic.twitter.com/lIRQqWqyMy
— Annie Heilbrunn (@annieheilbrunn) May 26, 2025
The bees eventually settled on the camera apparatus affixed to the netting behind the plate. Shortly before gates opened to the public, a man in a beekeeper’s suit appeared and removed the bees.
The Padres provided this statement:
“During batting practice today, a swarm of bees settled in the area of the protective netting behind home plate. To ensure the safety of our fans, a professional beekeeper humanely removed the bees and released them at a safe location offsite.”
Tidbits
- Bogaerts stole his 10th base in 10 tries. He is one of five players with at least 10 steals to have not been caught this season.
- Luis Arraez got a start off yesterday but pinch-hit for designated hitter Luis Campusano and remained in the game in that role. He finished 0-for-2 and is 0-for-15 over the past four games. He was 19-for-53 (.358) with four doubles and two triples over the 12 games before this skid.
- Campusano is 0-for-11 but walked last night for the sixth time in 17 plate appearances this season. He also struck out looking for the third time (among his six total strikeouts). Campusano has been far more selective this season.
- You can read Jeff Sanders’ pregame story (here) for an update on the Padres’ starting pitching plans.
- Jason Adam extended his scoreless streak to 6⅓ innings over his past seven outings.
- Adrián Morejón has worked three of the past four games, throwing a total of 37 pitches over 3⅔ scoreless innings.
- It was nice that yesterday was the game Wade hosted kids from San Diego Youth Services and then he scored the winning run. I wrote in April about Wade having inspired a clothing line and donating a portion of the proceeds from the sales to SDYS.
- Machado played in his 861st game with the Padres last night, which is one more game than he played with the Orioles. Last week, I used this approaching milestone as a reason to write (here) about Machado’s legacy with the Padres.
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.
