Would you like to invest in a mutual fund?<\/p>\n
Be sure to read the small print disclaimer: past performance is no guarantee of future results.<\/p>\n
When Major League Baseball\u2019s trade deadline arrives, no such warning goes out to Padres President of Baseball Operations A.J. Preller and his counterparts.<\/p>\n
They know that when a player is brought onto a new team deep into a season, while it\u2019s certain that his luggage will arrive before too long, there\u2019s a chance his comfort level won\u2019t. On the flip side, some struggling players benefit from an in-season trade.<\/p>\n
No mysteries plagued Preller this summer as far as which Padres positions needed upgrades ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. Left fielder and catcher were sore spots. The Padres had enough talent to still get a wild-card playoff spot if Preller didn\u2019t solve those problems. But if the Padres were to challenge for the National League West title, gains were needed.<\/p>\n
So far, the newbies have shored up those two spots.<\/p>\n
Left fielder Ram\u00f3n\u00a0Laureano was having a career-best season when Preller got him and first baseman\/DH Ryan O\u2019Hearn from the Orioles for six minor leaguers taken in the 2024 amateur draft.<\/p>\n
Laureano has deepened his hitting groove so far with his team. The right-handed hitter, whose home run Friday accounted for the only run off Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw during his six innings of work in the Padres\u2019 3-2 defeat, went into Saturday\u2019s game with a .327 batting average and 1.022 OPS in his 13 games with the Padres.<\/p>\n
Defensively, he\u2019s been as advertised \u2013 mostly good.<\/p>\n
Freddy Ferm\u00edn is succeeding in an even tougher transition.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old Venezuelan has become the main catcher and also strengthened the lineup\u2019s No. 9 spot. The righty batted .364 with a home run, a double and two sacrifice bunts in 10 games entering Saturday.<\/p>\n
No longer backing up Salvador Perez, Ferm\u00edn may be benefiting from regular at-bats. Defensively, he seems to have meshed with Padres pitchers. They\u2019ve recorded a 3.36 ERA with Ferm\u00edn catching them.<\/p>\n
Variety expected<\/p>\n
Mike Shildt made an interesting point following Friday\u2019s loss to the Dodgers. \u201cEvery game is going to be very different,\u201d said the Padres manager.<\/p>\n
It was the first of six games this month between the West rivals, who each seek a first-round playoff bye that goes to the NL\u2019s top two division winners.<\/p>\n
Friday served up the only projection of this series that carried a solid disparity at starting pitcher (or bulk pitcher).<\/p>\n
The Dodgers leveraged that edge into the one-run victory.<\/p>\n
Kershaw outpitched injured Padres starter Michael King\u2019s replacement, Randy V\u00e1squez, the bulk-innings pitcher. V\u00e1squez went 3 2\/3 innings and allowed two runs. He came in after reliever Wandy Peralta got four outs to open the game.<\/p>\n
Padres relievers had the better game, but the Kershaw-V\u00e1squez result was a two-run deficit. Kershaw cut his ERA to 3.01 in 15 starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cTon of respect for a future Hall of Famer, Clayton Kershaw,\u201d said Shildt, who lauded Kershaw\u2019s \u201cdesire to compete\u201d and \u201cpassion,\u201d noting he\u2019s in his 18th big-league season.<\/p>\n
L.A.\u2019s pitchers threw sliders more than half the time, almost doubling the staff\u2019s season ratio.<\/p>\n
A slider-heavy approach (51.3%) worked for Kershaw. The same tactic allowed Dodgers relievers, who\u2019d been combustible lately, to close it out.<\/p>\n
Jack Dreyer threw only sliders en route to the save. Alexis D\u00edaz got two big outs with his slider. Luis Arraez swung over a Kerhaw slider that bounced near home plate, dealing Arraez just his 15th strikeout in 513 plate appearances.<\/p>\n
A few Padres pitchers, in contrast, brought serious heat in high volume.<\/p>\n
The game\u2019s top 25 pitches in velocity were all thrown by Padres pitchers. Those 25 pitches, which ranged from 96.1 mph to 102.1, were thrown by Peralta, Jeremiah Estrada and deadline acquisition Mason Miller. The latter had six pitches between 100 and 102.1 mph.<\/p>\n
L.A.\u2019s Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez has taken the measure of Estrada.<\/p>\n
On June 11, the righty slugger drove Estrada\u2019s 98 mph fastball for a 420-foot home run in San Diego. Friday, in their first rematch, Hernandez hit the righty\u2019s 99 mph fastball 400 feet for a home run to add to the 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Ferm\u00edn fared well in his intro to one of MLB\u2019s hottest rivalries.<\/p>\n
His A+ release and throw nabbed Shohei Ohtani trying to steal second base, preventing Ohtani from punishing V\u00e1squez\u2019s leg raise from the stretch. Ferm\u00edn bunted two runners over, setting up a run against Alex Vesia.<\/p>\n
There was a Ferm\u00edn injury scare, though: Shildt said he feared the catcher suffered a chest injury in ramming into a camera well while trying to catch a popup. He stayed in the game.<\/p>\n
A pivotal wrinkle to Friday\u2019s game was Manny Machado making a sprint and dive forward for a looping sacrifice bunt try, only for it to go off his glove, loading the bases. \u201cGreat effort,\u201d Shildt said.<\/p>\n
Third basemen are accustomed to diving left or right. Forward, not so much.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not ideal that Arraez gets a lot of chances versus lefties. The lefty\u2019s OPS against them is .628 this year and .672 for his career.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hearn is much better against them, .777 this year, and that factored into the trade.<\/p>\n
This was interesting: With the Padres down 3-2 in the ninth, Shildt pinch-hit O\u2019Hearn for righty Jose Iglesias (.764 v LHP this year) with two outs and a runner on. O\u2019Hearn had homered off a lefty Aug. 4, tying the game in the ninth, leading to a win over the Diamondbacks in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
Dreyer threw him three sliders. O\u2019Hearn hit the third one for a flyout.<\/p>\n
Going forward in this rivalry, which will include three games in San Diego next weekend, expect Shildt\u2019s series preview to hold up.<\/p>\n
Get used to different.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 16, 2025 at 6:08 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Would you like to invest in a mutual fund? Be sure to read the small print disclaimer: past…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":152052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-152051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115041813395818035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}