Good morning from Cleveland,
We have reached the point where pretty much everything the Padres say about their struggles makes sense and pretty much none of it will matter if things don’t change soon.
“I think our at-bats have been great,” Manny Machado said last night after the Padres lost 7-0 to the Guardians. “We just haven’t really connected. Runs are hard to come by, but overall, I think the game plan has been the same game plan it has all year. We just just haven’t executed. We haven’t gotten some runs across the board.”
You can read in my game story (here) about how the Padres’ seventh loss in eight games went down.
Columnist Bryce Miller was also at the game, which besides being delightful for me, means you can read his insight (here). Last night, Bryce wrote about the importance of this trip and the way the Guardians showed the Padres how to take advantage.
Last night was the second time in five games the Padres have been shut out and the third time in seven games they had just four hits. Their 12 runs and .199 batting average over those seven games are season lows over any seven-game stretch.
Thing is, for the most part, the Padres really aren’t approaching their at-bats all that much differently now than when they were among the best-hitting teams in the major leagues.
It is true that during portions of this skid they have pressed at the plate. But they did not seem to do so last night, and they had not done so the final two games before the All-Star break.
They also continued their run of facing good pitching. The Guardians have a starting rotation that has not been strong on the whole, but facing a team coming out of the break usually means getting the best pitchers they have at the start.
The Padres made Tanner Bibee throw 27 pitches in the first inning and had him at 57 pitches through three innings. But after Jake Cronenworth led off the fourth inning with a single, the inning was over eight pitches later.
“Got a little too aggressive,” Machado said. “Swung at some of his early pitches.”
The strategy wasn’t to merely get Bibee out of the game, which they did after 5⅔ innings and 102 pitches. The idea was to wear Bibee down and beat him. The Guardians have the lowest bullpen ERA in the majors.
So swinging early at the right pitches was not necessarily a bad thing. Machado (first pitch) and Xander Bogaerts (second pitch) did that with Cronenworth on base. They just made outs.
Right idea, wrong execution.
Said Machado: “Sometimes he gives you pitches there that you — we just couldn’t get hits, honestly.”
Waldron’s education
Matt Waldron came out of the break trusting his knuckleball.
He threw the pitch more frequently last night than he had in any of his 25 career starts.
He had, however, come close to last night’s 55.7 percent rate.
What he had not done before was throw it so confidently on the first pitch to batters. He did so 16 times in 23 batters last night.
“I just wanted to get ahead with a bunch of knuckleballs and just get that usage up and then make them respect that,” said Waldron, who allowed one run on six hits over six innings. “I’d rather get beat with my best weapon and then see where we go from there, than vice versa, like some of the other times.”
Waldron’s education as a starter is ongoing. He has been candid about struggling with his conviction on the knuckleball. Just when it seems he has begun to trust the pitch, he will revert to throwing it just 30 percent of the time in a game.
Maybe he is done with that.
“I have to admit, like, I’m better with that and just use it more,” he said. “It’s just who I am. And I’m still learning some things, obviously. I don’t know what number that is for me for starts, but l I’m constantly learning more and more. I think it’s just way more important than I’ve ever given credit. … You either learn the hard way or you just try and keep learning, I guess.”
Waldron has been the Padres’ steadiest pitcher over the past two months.
He has gone at least five innings in 12 of his past 13 starts and allowed no more than two runs in 10 of those starts. His 2.63 ERA in 13 starts since May 11 is sixth best in the major leagues in that span.
No more
When manager Mike Shildt and athletic trainer Mark Rogow were running to right field to check on David Peralta in the eighth inning, the same thought had to be running through the head of every member of the organization.
Something like, “Not another one.”
It appeared Peralta’s right knee was fine, as he remained in the game and sprinted after a ball seemingly unfettered later in the eighth.
That is good. Because no matter who it is — and Peralta entered last night’s game having gotten 10 hits in his previous 30 at-bats — the Padres cannot afford to lose any more players.
For all the confidence they express, they know that.
“That’s what happened to us in ‘21,” Cronenworth said last week. “Shoot, we were in a much better position than we are right now.”
He referred to the Padres’ implosion in 2021 that was largely due to injuries to their pitching staff.
They were 17 games above .500 with a five-game lead for the final wild-card playoff spot in the National League on Aug. 10 of that season and went 12-34 the rest of the way. In the history of baseball, dating to the formation of the American Association in 1886, just three teams with a winning record with 46 games remaining in a season closed with a worse mark than the Padres did in ‘21.
This is not meant to be alarmist. It is merely to point out the precarious situation the Padres are in as they sit at .500 (50-50), down two starting pitchers and a right fielder.
I wrote yesterday about the progress of Joe Musgrove (one of those starting pitchers) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (the right fielder).
You can read about that in my pregame notebook (here).
The Padres have been diligent about not appearing as if they are making an excuse regarding injuries, but there is no doubt the return of Tatis and Musgrove is seen as crucial to the team’s chances.
“I feel pretty good about where we are relative to having (those kind of players out),” Shildt said. “Every club is banged up, so we make no excuse. But let’s not kid ourselves. We get ‘Tati’ and Joe back, thats’ a big lift for this club.”
(There is still no word on whether starting pitcher Yu Darvish will return from the restricted list, as he is tending to a family matter. The Padres say he is staying in shape, but the decision on whether he returns is his alone.)
While we were away
I wrote (here) Thursday about the players’ confidence as they start the second half being rooted in Shildt’s unwavering faith in them.
The 2025 MLB schedule was released Thursday. Jeff Sanders wrote about that (here).
I wrote on Tuesday (here) about the Padres being able to find a relative secret in a kid from Maryland named Jackson Merrill and how he advanced from high school to All-Star in a little over three years.
Tidbits
- Last night was the fourth time the Padres lost a game in which Waldron gave up one run. It was the first time Waldron was charged with the loss in one of those games.
- All four Padres hits last night were by Cronenworth and Luis Arraez, who each had two. It was just the fourth game this season in which no more than two Padres player got hits.
- One of Arraez’s hits was a double. Last night was the second game in a row and the fourth time in eight games the Padres had one or zero extra-base hits. That had happened once in the previous 15 games.
- Merrill struck out all four times he batted last night and has 16 strikeouts in 46 at-bats this month. He struck out 16 times in his previous 87 at-bats.
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.
