Good morning from New York,

Matt Waldron has been the Padres’ most dependable starting pitcher for much of the season.They may end up looking back on 2024 and consider his performance to be one of the main reasons they made the playoffs.

He continued a stretch last night in which he has been among the top starting pitchers in the major leagues.

You can read in my game story (here) about how the Padres lost 2-1 to the Mets despite Waldron’s seven strong innings.

He has a 1.91 ERA over his past seven starts, ninth best in the major leagues in that span. The .181 batting average he is allowing in that time (since May 11) is fourth best.

Here is a look at the statistics for every pitcher to have started for the Padres this season:

That list shows Waldron has been a godsend and that the Padres have not had an ace.

And it illustrates why they are poised to be aggressive in the next six-plus weeks leading up to the July 30 trade deadline.

According to people familiar with their discussions with other teams and where they are focusing their scouting efforts, the Padres have cast a wide net but are largely focused on acquiring a starting pitcher to put at or near the top of their rotation.

They believe they have a team that can win a championship this season but feel they need more quality innings and also want to protect against injury.

It is believed a deal will require them to part with more of their top-10 prospects and further diminish their stockpile of minor leaguers anywhere near ready to contribute in the majors. The Padres already sent away five prospects that were ranked in their top 10 in deals for Luis Arraez and Dylan Cease.

The organization is widely believed to have a deep pool of high-end talent in the minor leagues, but many of those better players have yet to turn 20.

There is an appetite internally to make deals, and the team has budgeted all along to be able to add at the deadline.

However, it will require a balancing act.

Not only are the Padres intent on remaining below the CBT threshold, sources have said the team still aims to continue to keep payroll under control in future seasons by surrounding their stars with homegrown young (cheap) talent.

The Padres, who are also seeking another reliever and could add a bat, are within $12 million of the first CBT threshold.

In the Zone

If you want insight from Jake Cronenworth about a play he made in a loss, you have to ask people other than Cronenworth.

“That was an incredible play by him,” catcher Kyle Higashioka said. “… I don’t want to say crucial, because I should have made a better throw. But it’s just nice to have. He’s so good with the glove.

You don’t ever expect a guy to make a play like that. But if you do, it’s Croney.”

The play occurred in the fourth inning, when the Mets’ Tyrone Taylor took off on an attempted steal of second base. Presciently, Croneworth moved up to get Higashioka’s throw on a short hop well in front of the bag and in one continual motion caught the ball and placed a tag on Taylor’s hip.

“Unbelievable,” Waldron said. “Especially with the wet grass. It skips and who knows what’s gonna happen.”

Cronenworth’s explanation of how he made such a play: “Get to the base early and go wherever the ball is going.”

Good, bad

Before yesterday’s game, Padres manager Mike Shildt said he expects Manny Machado to be back at third base “sooner rather than later.”

A short while after Shildt spoke, Machado took ground balls at third base, looking more mobile and fluid than he had at any point since suffering a strained right hip flexor strain on June 5.

He certainly does not look OK running the bases. And he doesn’t look much better at the plate much of the time.

Machado ran his strikeout streak to five consecutive at-bats by fanning his first two times up yesterday and finished 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. He was 4-for-8 with a double in his first two games back after missing four starts but is 0-for-8 with six strikeouts in the past two games.

Whether that has anything to do with the latest injury or is merely the lingering effects of his offseason elbow surgery is not known.

Machado, who batted .347/.413/.486 over a 21-game stretch that began May 19 and ran through Tuesday, is batting .248/.307/.370 on the season.

The .677 OPS is his lowest this far into any season in his career. The only season in which his OPS was close to this low was 2023.

Accidents happen

Jackson Merrill talked earlier this week about the power he knows he has in him.

Last night, he hit his third home run in the past two games.

Jackson Merrill – San Diego Padres (6)
pic.twitter.com/FVhxJzJrND

— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) June 15, 2024

When he sent a blast onto and then over the wall in right-center field in the fifth inning, it was actually his third homer in five at-bats. That followed a stretch of 93 at-bats without a home run.

“Homers are happy accidents,” Merrill said. “I’m not trying to go up there and hit a homer.”

You can read in Thursday’s newsletter (here) about Merrill’s evolution as a hitter.

Mazur’s next one

Adam Mazur spent part of Thursday, his first day ever in Manhattan, walking around Central Park and Times Square.

Today he will make his third big-league start with the intent that it is better than his second.

The right-hander, who is scheduled to pitch today against the Mets, doesn’t necessarily need the four double-play grounders he got while allowing the Angels one run on two hits over six innings in his debut on June 4. But he needs more of those types of plays than he got while yielding eight runs in three innings Sunday against the Diamondbacks.

“I would just say execution,” Mazur said yesterday. “The first game, I was able to get ground balls when I needed to. … Execution is what I need. I felt mechanically, I was a little off.”

Tidbits

• With last night’s loss ending another winning streak at three games, the Padres will have to start over in their quest to get their first lengthy winning streak of the season. They have four three-game winning streaks and a four-game streak. They are one of nine teams without a winning streak of at least five games in 2024.
• Arraez had fallen to second in MLB in batting average behind the Royals’ Bobby Witt on the Padres’ off day. Arraez is back on top (at .329) after going 2-for-4 last night. Jurickson Profar was also 2-for-4 last night, raising his average to .326 while Witt went 0-for-4 in a loss to the Dodgers and is now third with a .325 average.
• Cronenworth was hit by a pitch for the fifth time this season, tied with Fernando Tatis Jr. for the team lead.
• A game after four Padres players accounted for the team’s six hits in a win over the A’s, three players accounted for the Padres’ five hits last night.
• With the assist from Cronenworth, Higashioka has thrown out seven of the 22 runners who have attempted to steal against him. He does not qualify to be among the league leaders since he has caught just 183 innings. But he would rank fourth with a 31.8 percent caught stealing rate. Primary catcher Luis Campusano has thrown out one of 31 runners.
• The Padres have homered in eight consecutive games, their longest streak of the season.
• I wrote in my pregame notebook (here) about the new-look Adrián Morejón, as well as the next step for Yu Darvish.

All right, that’s it for me.

Earlier game (1:10 p.m. PT) today.

Talk to you tomorrow.