Good morning,
In the first game of this homestand — eight days ago, when the Padres were good — the largest crowd to ever watch a baseball game at Petco Park saw one of the most exciting final innings ever.
For the first time in major league history, a grand slam, a go-ahead home run, a game-tying home run and a walk-off home run were hit by four different players in the same inning.
The Padres won 10-8 that night and were six games above .500.
There was a belief inside the organization that a crowd of 47,171 to watch a game against the Diamondbacks validated the idea the Padres had achieved the convergence of a good fan experience and a good team.
In the five games that have followed, the crowds have continued to show up but the team has mostly not.
Last night’s announced crowd of 44,390 was the fifth sellout in the six games on this homestand and the Padres’ fifth consecutive loss.
The Padres have sold out 30 of their 51 games at Petco Park this season and rank fourth in the major leagues in attendance.
How long can this sort of enthusiasm last?
That depends, probably, on whether the Padres can once again stop the sinking feeling from the outside that this all has a very 2021 feel to it.
It is too early to definitively state such a thing despite the spate of injuries and state of the pitching staff helping fuel the flashbacks to a team that imploded.
A.J. Preller hasn’t even had a chance to take his swings at the trade deadline.
But here the Padres are, reeking and reeling.
They have lost five in a row for the fourth time this season. They are 49-48 and no longer in playoff position.
There really has been just one poor start in the four games, though the bullpen has leaked badly.
However, this has mostly been an offensive letdown.
The Padres had 14 hits in a 7-5 loss in 10 innings on Saturday. They have 19 hits and have scored a total of five runs in the four ensuing losses.
Last night was the fourth consecutive game in which they had four different innings in which no one reached base. That had happened in just four of their previous 19 games and 22 times in their first 93 games this season.
They were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position last night after going 1-for-6 in their previous game and not having a single at-bat with a runner in scoring position in the two games before that, the first time in 50 years that had happened to a Padres team in successive games.
Their .194 on-base percentage over the past four games is the third lowest over a four-game stretch in the past eight seasons, behind one in September 2021 and one in August 2022.
They ended up finishing with five hits last night when Xander Bogaerts grounded his second single of the game through the middle of the infield with two outs in the ninth inning.
You can read about Bogaerts’ return from the injured list in Jeff Sanders’ game story (here) from last night’s 6-1 loss to the Braves.
So what is up with the offense?
Besides the too-easy answer of a regression to the mean without Manny Machado on fire and with Fernando Tatis Jr. in the dugout, they have faced a spate of strike throwers.
We’re not talking about Cy Young candidates here. Maybe Logan Gilbert, who had a 2.94 ERA going into his start against the Padres on Tuesday. Bryce Miller (Wednesday) was almost a point higher. Ryne Nelson (Sunday) and Spencer Schwellenbach (last night) entered their starts with ERAs north of five.
But they all threw strikes against the Padres. And an offense that has helped itself much of the year by not chasing and exploiting pitchers who don’t routinely work in the zone has been befuddled.
The worst of the starters the Padres have faced over the past four games has thrown strikes on 66 percent of his pitches. Two of the pitchers topped 71 percent.
The Padres have walked six times in all and three times against the four starters, who have all earned the win and all gone at least six innings.
Through Saturday’s game, the loss in extras, the Padres were batting .264/.326/.413. Those numbers all ranked in the top 10 in MLB. They are batting .154/.194/.244 over the past four games.
The swings they are taking aren’t working out.
The Padres have a .163 batting average on balls in play over the past four games compared to a .299 BABIP through Saturday.
One of the best things about baseball is the unpredictability.
But the plain truth is Spencer would seem to have provided the Padres their best opportunity to win this weekend.
They face Raynaldo Lopez (1.71 ERA) today and Chris Sale (2.72 ERA) Saturday. Lopez held the Padres to two runs on five hits in 6⅔ innings in the first game of a doubleheader on May 20 in Atlanta. Sale shut them out on five hits over seven innings in the second game that day.
Swept away
Matt Waldron made two bad pitches — or one pitch badly, twice — in a four-run fourth inning and was otherwise magnificent last night.
Two sweepers that hardly swept on their way to the heart of the strike zone ended up being hit a total of 814 feet for a solo home run by Marcell Ozuna (413 feet) and two-run homer by Orlando Arcia (401) in the Braves’ four-run fifth inning.
“Definitely two sweepers left over the middle, and that’s all it took for those runs,” Waldron said. “I tried to stretch it out and get to seven (innings). I did. But four runs, that’s too much against a team with … good pitchers.”
Waldron had thrown 47 pitches through four innings and took a total of just 15 to navigate the sixth and seventh.
It really didn’t matter whether he pitched seven or nine or 29 innings, in that the Padres scored one run. Still, it was curious when Waldron was finished after seven innings having thrown just 80 pitches.
He was about to begin his fourth time through the order, and the Padres were down three runs.
“He was cruising, could have justified him really, if we needed to send him out for the eighth,” manager Mike Shildt said.”But he’d done his part. … They’re starting to see him again , starting to turn the lineup over. He’d been effective, but we’re down at that point and a chance to get some guys — not some work, we’re still in the game — but we’re going to need guys to be able to fill those roles and fill those innings and throw up zeros. That’s why we looked to bring them in.”
Logan Gillaspie allowed a run on two hits and a sacrifice fly in the eighth, and Enyel De Los Santos surrendered a solo homer in the ninth.
Peralta’s milestone
The well-wishers kept filing by David Peralta’s locker to offer their congratulations.
Fellow Venezuelan Luis Arraez brought a cake and a giant bottle of Don Julio 1942 tequila.
Peralta reached 10 years of major league service time on Friday, something that fewer than 10 percent of players in MLB history have done.
“It’s hard to get to and it’s a big accomplishment and I’m really excited,” Peralta said. “I was waiting for this moment my whole career. And I made it. And now I’m just gonna keep continuing. But it was a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication and discipline to get to this point. So I’m really excited.”
Peralta, 36, was signed by the Padres to a minor-league contract in May and joined the big-league club on May 22. He is batting .229/.297/.301 in 91 plate appearances. He is 7-for-25 (.280) while starting in right field the past eight games, a stretch that began with his hitting a game-winning home run in the seventh inning on July 3 at Texas.
He began his career as a pitcher in 2006 but never made it past Rookie ball in the Cardinals organization. He worked odd jobs and played independent ball in 2011 and ‘12 and was signed as an outfielder by the Diamondbacks in 2012.
“I was working hard every day and put a lot of dedication and discipline and work to get to this point,” Peralta said. “I didn’t know if I wasn’t gonna make it or not. Like I (often) say, I don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow, but I was making sure to do everything (to get) to the day today. … It’s a lot of hard work. You know, people don’t realize that baseball is a hard game. It’s a hard mental game — and physical. Like, do you know how many times I had to start from zero?
“I have (had) six surgeries on my body…. When you have a surgery, you have to start from zero. But I was telling myself that I’m gonna come back better. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I never give up.”
Tidbits
- Tatis spoke publicly yesterday for the first time in more than two weeks. You can read his thoughts on being elected an All-Star starter, not being able to play in the game and an update on his health in my pregame story (here).
- Jeff Sanders had the details in his game preview (here) on the roster moves yesterday, including a scouting report on new reliever Sean Reynolds.
- The Padres are one of five teams to have at least four losing streaks of five games or more this season. The Marlins have had five. The White Sox, Rockies and Rangers have all had four.
- De Los Santos is not quite a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But he is a tough one to figure. Only five qualifying relievers in the major leagues get less contact on pitches in the zone than De Los Santos’ rate of 76.2 percent. Yet no reliever has allowed more home runs than De Los Santos’ 11.
- The Padres won three of four in Atlanta in May. They also won three of four in Atlanta last season while losing two of three in San Diego. Since 2021, the Padres are 10-4 at Truist Park and 3-8 against the Braves at Petco Park.
- Last night’s game took just two hours, 12 minutes. It was the Padres’ quickest game since May 28, when they beat the Marlins 4-0 in two hours, one minute. They have played just six other games as quickly as last night’s.
- Arraez hit .371 in his first 30 starts for the Padres. He is batting .233 in his 28 starts since.
All right, that’s it for me.
No newsletter tomorrow. I have to help rearrange our furniture before I leave tomorrow for a two-week trip. True story. I will cover today’s game, which starts at 4:15 p.m. PT because it is nationally televised on FOX, and we will have the usual coverage on our Padres page. And then I will move furniture around our house. And then I will pack for the trip to Dallas, Cleveland, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
I don’t wear a cape or anything. But …
Anyway, the next Padres Daily will be Monday.
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