Good morning,
The Padres beat the Giants 5-1 last night to stop the longest four-game losing streak in the history of the world.
Such was the fretting regarding the Padres being swept by the Dodgers over the weekend and losing to the Giants on Monday that the skid seemed much longer than four games.
And the reality is that there have been and there remain reasons to be concerned.
But a team in need of a win got one.
It was impressive. And kind of a grind.
The Padres took a little bit to get going against a young starting pitcher who hasn’t been good.
They missed opportunity after opportunity to make the game lopsided.
But after a home run on the second pitch of the game, the Giants did not score again and got just three more hits against Nick Pivetta and three relief pitchers.
The Padres answered in the bottom of the first, took a lead in the fourth and added a run in the fifth and one more in the sixth.
All nine players in the starting lineup reached base at least once. Five different players scored. Five different players drove in runs.
“It was one through nine,” manager Mike Shildt said. “It’s the blueprint of how we play — better as the game goes, contributions from all parts of the lineup.”
You can read in Jeff Sanders’ game story (here) about Pivetta once again being the “stopper” and how the Padres built their first win since their last win over Giants six days earlier.
“Just the whole ballclub playing good baseball,” Manny Machado said. “We know what we’re capable of. Just continue doing that. That’s our game. That’s our best baseball. … Just to get back in the win column, it’s a good thing. We play our game like we did today, we’re going to be in a good spot.”
Time on their side
The Mets and the Reds won yesterday.
But they also lost. Especially the Reds.
Every time the team ahead in the standings wins, the team giving chase suffers a setback because a page comes off the calendar.
The Padres could go .500 over their final 36 games and finish with 88 wins, which is what FanGraphs projects will be the win total for the final NL playoff entrant.
Better ahead
The Padres were mostly befuddled by Giants starter Kai-Wei Teng for three innings last night.
This was a guy pitching in his eighth major league game and making his third start.
His second start was last Wednesday in San Francisco when the Padres scored seven runs against him in the second inning, which he did not make it out of.
In his other big-league start, Aug. 2 against the Mets, Teng allowed five runs in 3⅓ innings.
He did throw five scoreless innings in a relief appearance against the Nationals in between those two starts. But he allowed 12 runs in 11 innings in four relief appearances last season and, as of today, has a 9.61 career ERA.
The Padres scored an unearned run against Teng in last night’s first inning and drove him from the game with two runs (on two singles, two hit batters and a walk) in the fourth.
They will see a different level of starting pitcher the next eight days.
The Padres will face Landen Roupp and Justin Verlander in the final two games of this series. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto will pitch for the Dodgers this weekend. The Mariners have Logan Evans, Luis Castillo and Bryan Woo lined up for the series in Seattle next week.
Tatis’ contribution
Fernando Tatis Jr. was 1-for-3 and walked twice last night.
He also stole his 25th base of the season, tied for the second-highest total of his career behind his 29 steals in 2023.
His .412 on-base percentage over his past 43 games is second highest in the NL since June 29.
He also went a 22nd game without a home run, the longest stretch of his career. His 89 at-bats and 104 plate appearances without a homer are also career-high droughts.
“I need to get better,” Tatis said. “… I’m happy as long as the team wins. But obviously I want to contribute more. I know I can do more and I want to do more.”
Manny’s dip
Machado drove in his first run in 15 games with a groundout in last night’s first inning.
“It felt all right, not great,” Machado said.
This was the second time in his career that Machado went 14 games without an RBI. He has never gone 15 games without one.
It is not that he has not had chances. He has one hit in his past 14 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
Machado did get two hits last night, his first multi-hit game since Aug. 5. One of those hits was his 31st double of the season, his most since 2021.
“It’s a rollercoaster ride,” he said. “You ride the good and ride the bad as best you can.”
Machado has had more ups and downs than it might seem this season. His relative consistency owes to his mostly avoiding extreme droughts.
Keeps getting better
Pivetta is almost certainly going to be named on Cy Young ballots for the first time in his career.
He is probably going to get a lot of down-ballot votes.
Pivetta, who never had better than a 4.04 ERA in his first eight big-league seasons, last night lowered his ERA to 2.81, seventh best in the NL.
He maintained his league lead in batting average allowed (.190) and moved into a tie with the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler for the league lead in WHIP (0.94). His 147⅓ innings rank eighth, and his 154 strikeouts are 10th most.
Last night was the seventh straight start in which Pivetta went at least six innings. That is the longest streak of his career and is tied with Dylan Cease (2024) and Sean Manaea (‘22) for the fifth-longest streak by a Padres pitcher since 2019.
Pivetta has a 1.71 ERA over his past 10 starts.
I wrote (here) a couple weeks ago about the changes Pivetta has made and what it is that drives him.
Getting some work
It was quite the parade of relievers Shildt ran out to protect a four-run lead against an opponent that doesn’t score much.
But such is the depth the Padres manager has to choose from, and the reality is all three had pitched once in the previous six days.
So Adrian Morejón worked the seventh, Jason Adam the eighth and Robert Suarez the ninth.
RISPy business
Shildt is rarely candid about his team’s shortcomings.
So this assessment qualified as his being downright critical:
“One thing we’ve still got to work on is runners in scoring position,” he said. “But we do have a lot of runners, so it’s a good thing.”
The Padres were 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position last night and are 6-for-40 over the past five games. Their .224 average over their past 87 games is third lowest in the major leagues in that span.
Shildt is correct that having a lot of runners reach second and/or third base is a positive. The Padres are 25-7 when they have at least 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
Tidbits
- Gavin Sheets fell behind 0-2 and then fouled off five straight pitches before a curveball hit him in the right foot in the fourth inning. Said Sheets: “It doesn’t hurt when it’s 0-2. You go to first base with a smile on your face.”
- Tatis drew his fourth bases-loaded walk this season. That is tied for second most in the major leagues.
- Ryan O’Hearn was 2-for-4 with an RBI last night. He is now 5-for-34 against right-handed pitchers since joining the Padres. As noted in yesterdays’ newsletter, O’Hearn is 4-for-5 with two home runs and two doubles against lefties.
- Jose Iglesias’ bases-loaded single in the fourth inning broke a 1-1 tie and stood as his ninth game-deciding RBI of the season. That is tied with Luis Arraez for second most on the team behind Machado’s 11. Iglesias has 251 fewer plate appearances than Arraez and 260 fewer than Machado.
- Arraez has hit four doubles in the past four games.
- The Padres improved to 26-28 when their opponent scores first. That is the best record in the majors.
- Shildt mentioned the importance of scoring “at least four runs” last night when discussing what he called the “blueprint” for a victory. The Padres are 51-16 (.761) when scoring at least four runs. That is the 11th-best record in MLB, but their total of 67 such games is tied for 19th. Across the major leagues, four runs is the magic number. Teams have a .727 winning percentage when scoring four or more and a .224 winning percentage when scoring three or fewer.
- Jeff Sanders’ game preview (here) provides health updates on Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth.
- I hate to draw attention to this, because fans running on the field is dumb and dangerous. But it was remarkable last night that it was a young boy who ran on the field during the top of the eighth inning. When the boy was tackled by a security guard — after the kid had stopped running and two security guards had already apprehended him — some players were visibly shocked and were still talking about it after the game.
Security tackles a young fan who ran onto the field during a game between the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants at Petco Park on Aug. 19, 2025 in San Diego, California. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.