Good morning from St. Louis,
There is almost no way to talk about the Padres at this point and not weave in the potential ramifications of the trade deadline.
Yes, the Padres need more production out of their current core. No single bat they add to their lineup is going to make all that appreciable a difference if Fernando Tatis Jr. keeps getting outslugged by Luis Arraez.
We have talked about that concept a lot.
The Padres traded for Juan Soto on Aug. 2, 2022. But it was Manny Machado who lifted the team onto his shoulders and into the playoffs that year by posting a .952 OPS from Aug. 3 through the end of the regular season.
Maybe the hero will again be Machado. Maybe Jackson Merrill will turn recent glimpses of his excellence into another magnificent second half. Perhaps Xander Bogaerts continues to post a the same four-digit OPS over the next month that he has the past month.
Or maybe it will be Tatis, whose OPS dropped below .800 yesterday and has not been above .832 since May.
But there is a consensus internally too.
“We need another bat,” is something heard more than a couple times over the past six days between Washington and Miami.
When that is being said straight up from inside the clubhouse, even in a background conversation, it means something. While players virtually always lobby for an active front office this time of year, players are less likely to acknowledge that what they are is not going to get the job done.
The trade deadline is a week from today. The Padres are increasingly seen by people around the league as likely to make a big splash, though it is widely believed they are angling to do so by unloading at least one of their bigger salaries. Multiple sources have said the team will not be committing significant additional money to the payroll this season.
The Padres seek a frontline player who can play left field and/or serve as their designated hitter. Second base has also been mentioned by league sources as a possibility, suggesting the team might finally be listening on calls they frequently get regarding Jake Cronenworth.
They also want to add a bench player and could add a catcher. And they have long sought another reliever to possibly lighten the load on the current group in the bullpen.
That is not to say all of those should be expected.
“I’ve lost my expectations of anything. I don’t try to expect anything,” Machado said yesterday. “Just keep playing baseball. I think we’ve got to put ourselves in a good position. I think our goal, no matter what happens at the deadline, we want to make a postseason run and we want to get deep into the postseason. That doesn’t change, whether we do anything, or we don’t, or if we do. We’ve just got to go out there and play better baseball than we did these last few days.”
Speaking of the unexpected
Multiple reports have said in recent days that teams are inquiring about Dylan Cease.
(This is where we pause for a reminder that hundreds upon hundreds of phone calls are made and texts sent between team decision makers in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline to discuss the framework of potential trades.)
It isn’t known how intently the Padres are listening to those calls regarding Cease. Nor is it easy to grasp what they would get back for a rental pitcher who is greatly underperforming (4.59 ERA, six quality starts) and will make about $4.5 million over the season’s final two months..
All that is certain is that the Padres would have to execute a separate move to make up the innings they lose by jettisoning Cease. They would almost certainly look to replace him with someone they believe can be better, as anything they do now is with an eye toward the postseason. There is no chance the Padres believe a rotation of Yu Darvish, Michael King (probably) and Randy Vásquez provides what they need in a playoff series.
One thing that gives some in the organization pause when considering trading Cease is that they do believe he is close to getting the results he has so often over the previous four seasons. They do think his pitches are working well.
The consistency of those pitches, specifically his command, is dooming Cease.
Backing up their belief is the fact Cease has a 3.49 FIP – a metric similar to ERA but measures only factors a pitcher can control — and ranks third in the major leagues with 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
Cease once again was not horrible but was hardly better than adequate yesterday, as he once again followed up a good start with a not-so-good one.
You can read my game story (here) for some details on Cease’s outing and how another really good pitcher who isn’t having a very good year dominated the Padres for seven innings.
After holding the Nationals scoreless over 5⅔ innings on Friday, Cease surrendered three runs (two earned) in five innings yesterday.
Cease has yet to string together even two games in which he allows zero or one runs. He did so four times in 2024, three times in 2023, five times in 2022 and three times in 2021.
It is stunning how the notoriously streaky Cease has not streaked at all this season.
In each of his past three seasons, he has had three different stretches of at least three starts in which he was excellent. There would be some clunkers in between. But once he got on a run, he was dominant and could be counted on continuing to be so for multiple starts.
Even in 2023, when he finished with a 4.58 ERA, Cease had a three-game stretch in which he had a 1.65 ERA, a four-game stretch with a 1.93 ERA and a five-game stretch with a 2.20 ERA. Those were separate stretches — one at that the start of the season, one in June and one in September.
His best run of even just three games this season was when he posted a 2.66 ERA over three starts in May.
Besides complimenting his “stuff” and how he has battled, Padres manager Mike Shildt’s greatest praise of Cease this season has been one he repeated yesterday.
“He has given us a chance,” Shildt said. “The expectations are high for Dylan. But he’s given us a chance to win a game. … Shoot, they scored three runs. One of them was unearned. So if Dylan can continue to throw the ball and keep us in games, we’ll reward it more than we (have) yet to this part of the season.”
That should not be taken to mean the Padres have consistently provided poor run support for Cease. He has gotten more support than Vásquez and essentially the same as Nick Pivetta.
Cease has allowed four runs by the time the fifth inning was over in five of his 21 starts. In another three times, he allowed three runs while not getting out of the fourth inning.
Yesterday, he got through five innings in 95 pitches.
He had some crazy swings with the command of his fastball.
Cease’s first six four-seam fastballs were balls, all of them in the first inning. His final eight that inning were strikes. He threw three four-seamers in the second inning, all strikes. Eight of the 10 he threw in the third inning were balls. And then 14 of his final 18 four-seamers were strikes.
“Mostly the walks in that first inning probably cost me an extra inning,” he said. “But other than that, I mean, I battled. Just not the results I would have liked. But it was alright. … I like where I’ve been at lately, honestly. The ball is coming out good. I like where I’m at. I just gotta execute a little differently.”
Hart’s focus
Left-hander Kyle Hart replaced Cease at the start of the sixth inning and worked two scoreless innings in his first outing since being recalled on Tuesday.
Hart, who allowed a single in the seventh and hit Kyle Stowers to start the eighth, previously worked 3⅔ perfect innings on July 6 against the Rangers.
Just two of the eight batters Hart faced yesterday were left-handers, against which he has fared far better this year.
Hart made six starts for the Padres this season. His 6.66 ERA in those starts owed largely to some big innings that spoiled a few good outings.
He spoke before yesterday’s game about the different mentality he had in the relief outing against the Rangers.
“I felt more just like, ‘Let’s just stay on the attack. Whatever happens, happens,’” Hart said. “I felt like in some of those (starts) where, like, the first three, four innings were great or there (were) stretches that were really good, I had that feeling for a minute and then I would kind of have a lapse of focus or whatever. And then all of a sudden, a major league ball club scores three, and you’re like, ‘Well, what happened?’ And so just staying focused, staying on the attack, I think has helped free me up to just execute and kind of go from there.”
Morgan strikes again
David Morgan came into Saturday’s game in Washington with a runner on first base and one out and threw one pitch, which was grounded to shortstop to start a double play that ended the eighth inning.
Yesterday, Morgan took over for Hart with Stowers on first and nobody out in the eighth inning. Four pitches later, the inning was over.
Morgan got ahead 0-2 against Agustín Ramírez before Ramírez popped out and then got Dane Myers to ground into a double play on the first pitch he saw.
A decision, explained
With a runner on first base and one out in the eighth inning, with the Padres down 3-2, the Marlins replaced a lefty with right-hander Calvin Faucher.
Shildt went to left-handed-hitting Trenton Brooks, who was batting .154 (6-for–39), to pinch-hit for catcher Elias Díaz.
Switch-hitter Bryce Johnson, who is batting .333 (9-for-27) was on the bench.
Shildt was asked about the decision.
For the record, he was asked by me.
I wondered aloud to Shildt if there were any underlying numbers or other factors that he had at his disposaI that I did not have which might explain the decision to go with Brooks, who has one hit and a walk in his past 17 plate appearances.
Shildt, in turn, asked for some clarification from me.
Shildt: “You mean as far as taking that at-bat, is there anything you don’t know about? Like, you’re questioning me is what you’re telling me?”
My answer: “Yes, I am questioning why him over Bryce in that Bryce has been hitting the ball pretty well and Trenton hasn’t.”
Shildt: “You’re going off results.”
Me: “Absolutely. So that’s why I ask.”
Shildt: “I’m going off quality of at-bat.”
Reverse backstops
The script was flipped yesterday, as Martín Maldonado came in to catch in a game started by Díaz for just the seventh time this season. It has been the other way — with Díaz catching at the end of a game started by Maldonado — 31 times this season.
Maldonado has started more games (53 to 49) at catcher than Díaz this season, but Díaz has played in more games (30 to 60) than Maldonado.
It is possible what happened yesterday — with Díaz being lifted for a pinch-hitter and Maldonado coming in to catch — could happen more often. Diaz’s offensive numbers have slipped. He is 2-for-30 (.67) with three walks over his past 17 games and is batting .196/.268/.304 on the season.
Meanwhile, Maldonado going 4-for-11 during a four-game hitting streak has him up to .190/.229/.321 for the season.
No.1 pick in fold
The Padres have signed their first-round draft pick.
Hard-throwing left-hander Kruz Schoolcraft and the team agreed on a $3.606 million deal, according to MLB.com’s Jim Callis.
That is the slotted number for where Schoolcraft was picked. Teams have a preset amount of money they can use to sign draft picks based on the total of the slot value for their picks in the first 10 rounds. Teams can negotiate up or down from the slotted number with each of their picks. The slot values are determined by MLB.
The 6-foot-8 Schoolcraft, who had committed to play collegiately at Tennessee, was selected 25th overall on July 13 after a prep season in which he had a 0.39 ERA and struck out 91 batters in 54 innings for Sunset High in Portland, Ore.
Tidbits
- The series loss to the Marlins was the Padres’ second of the season to a sub-.500 team. They are 12-2-1 in series against teams that currently have a losing record. The Padres are 6-11-1 in series against teams with winning records. The Cardinals are 52-51. Should the Padres win the four-game series here, they would relegate the Cardinals to being a losing team.
- Update on one-run game totals: The Padres’ fell to 22-16 in games decided by one run, ninth in the major leagues. Their 38 one-run games are third most in the majors.
- Update on low-scoring games: The Padres scored fewer than three runs for the 38th time, sixth most in the majors. Their 12-26 record in such games is second best in the majors.
- Arraez, serving as the Padres’ DH for a second straight day after banging his knee in a collision at first base on Monday, was 1-for-4 yesterday. He has a hit in all six games since the All-Star break and is batting .375 (9-for-24) in that span. Shildt said he expects Arraez back at first tonight.
- Merrill had a remarkable series for a guy who still has a stomach bug running through him. He drove in a run and then scored from first base on a double in the Padres’ 2-1 victory on Monday, had a two-run double in the ninth inning Tuesday that got the Padres within a run in what ended up a 4-3 loss, and he doubled and scored in the eighth inning yesterday. Merrill said he doesn’t know exactly what his malady is, but he said he finally got a good night’s sleep on Tuesday.
- Machado was 2-for-4 yesterday, overtaking Arraez for the team lead with 31 multi-hit games.
- Tyler Wade was in the starting lineup for the first time since June 25. You can read my game preview (here) for his thoughts on his light workload the past month.
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.