![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sut-l-padres-0628_fcdbb3.jpg\")
The Padres\u2019 Gavin Sheets rounds the bases after hitting a three-run homer in the seventh inning of Saturday\u2019s victory over the Reds. (AP Photo\/Jeff Dean)\nThe Padres\u2019 plan<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 It seems pretty plain to Manny Machado.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played our worst ball so far,\u201d he said Tuesday night, standing in a corridor at Truist Park in Atlanta, still dressed in his uniform after playing in the All-Star game. \u201cSo the best is yet to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was too much confidence in Machado\u2019s tone to imply that it was a matter of him simply believing it can\u2019t get any worse.<\/p>\n
It certainly could.<\/p>\n
For however it might have seemed during portions of May and June, the Padres have been pretty good \u2014 at least relatively speaking.<\/p>\n
They are eight games over .500 and in possession of the National League\u2019s final wild-card spot.<\/p>\n
But they know they can be better. They know they should be better. They know they have to be better.<\/p>\n
And that applies mainly to the offense.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 starting rotation, which just got back Yu Darvish two starts ago and expects to be whole by the middle of August with the return of Michael King, has survived despite relying on inexperienced pitchers and not getting its money\u2019s worth from Dylan Cease. The bullpen, with the major leagues\u2019 second-lowest ERA (3.20), has been the Padres\u2019 backbone.<\/p>\n
But as the Padres prepare to begin what is traditionally known as the second half \u2014 even though they\u2019re 25 games past the midpoint of their season \u2014 there is a deep-seated concern that their backs will break if it the \u2018pen continues to carry the weight.<\/p>\n
The Padres have played a lot of close and low-scoring games.<\/p>\n
The 35 games in which they have scored two or fewer runs is most among any team with an overall winning record. The Padres\u2019 11 victories in those games are second most in the majors. Winning games without scoring a lot requires good pitching and defense, and it often entails some excellent baserunning. But it is by no means a good thing to have so many games, as evidenced by their 24 losses in such games.<\/p>\n
The Padres have had 78 games decided by one or two runs, second only to the Rockies, whose record is the worst in the major leagues.<\/p>\n
The most such games a playoff team has had in any of the past three seasons was 118. For the Padres not to blow past that number, they would need to lower their rate of one- and two-run games from 81% to 61%.<\/p>\n
They love to tout their ability to excel at \u201cplayoff-type baseball.\u201d That is a reference to the type of game most often played in the postseason, in which runs can be scarce and doing the little things correctly makes a big difference.<\/p>\n
This is Mike Shildt\u2019s kind of baseball.<\/p>\n
His 2019 Cardinals team, which won 90 games and advanced to the National League Championship Series, ranked 24th in runs scored while their pitching staff ranked 17th in ERA. His 2021 Cardinals team, which won 90 games and earned a wild-card playoff spot, was 20th in runs and 12th in ERA.<\/p>\n
These are not standard rankings for playoff teams. Just five of the 36 playoff teams over the past three seasons were ranked outside the top 10 in both runs and ERA. The 2023 Marlins and 2022 Rays are the only teams in the past three seasons to make the playoffs after ranking lower than 19th in runs scored.<\/p>\n
The \u201825 Padres are ranked 25th in runs per game and sixth in ERA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll just continue to figure out how to win on every little single margin we can,\u201d Shildt said recently. \u201c\u2026 When a group together does that and is invested in that, it gives you the best opportunity to keep going when things get tougher.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, the Padres manager made a pair of comments on separate occasions last week that belied his assurance that winning on the margins is enough.<\/p>\n
One, coming at the end of a soliloquy on why the Padres are able to win low-scoring games, was a wisecrack:<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is legal to win 7-3 or 8-2.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other was just straight wisdom:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot survive trying to win one-run games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 Gavin Sheets rounds the bases after hitting a three-run homer in the seventh inning of Saturday\u2019s victory over the Reds. (AP Photo\/Jeff Dean)
\nThe Padres\u2019 plan<\/p>\n
So what has to happen?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve all got to string some good at-bats together as a group,\u201d Machado said. \u201cSo hopefully, we continue doing it as a group and bring some other guys to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Machado\u2019s last assertion is what will occupy A.J. Preller and his lieutenants for the next two weeks. They expect to add at least one significant offensive contributor and hope to add an additional offensive upgrade. The preference for a bona fide contributor is a right-handed batter and left fielder. Given the paucity of available players who specifically fit that description, are affordable and could provide a significant upgrade, the Padres have cast a wider net.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t have a lot of money to commit. Nor do they have a lot of prospects or young major leaguers to trade.<\/p>\n
They do have confidence they can once again take a big swing.<\/p>\n
The Padres also seek to improve the offensive production they are getting from the catcher position.<\/p>\n
But what Machado said about the group and its swings is what everyone in the organization knows is the key to this season.<\/p>\n
The current group of players \u2014 especially the players considered the team\u2019s offensive core \u2014 have to produce more consistently.<\/p>\n
Padres officials will occasionally say something about how they have already made their big moves. That is a reference to the trades and signings the team has made to add King, Cease, Xander Bogaerts and Luis Arraez and lock up Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth.<\/p>\n
And that is both the problem and the promise for the 2025 Padres.\u00a0That group of hitters has, by and large, not produced at the level the Padres need it to.<\/p>\n
Consider:<\/p>\n
The rest of the roster, save for savior Gavin Sheets, has been unreliable. Sheets has made left field not so much of a liability, though before that it had been a precipitous dropoff from the production Jurickson Profar provided last year. Similarly, the Padres simply are not getting the same production from catcher or the bench that they did last season.<\/p>\n
Sheets, who joined the Padres just before spring training on a minor-league deal, has been holding down a middle spot in the order with a .265 average, .775 OPS, 14 homers and 15 doubles. He has turned into the Padres\u2019 regular left fielder after first working his way into the lineup as the designated hitter. His consistency and clutch hitting have been arguably the biggest game-changers for the Padres this season. He is batting .280 against left-handers, quite an improvement over his .168 mark in his first four MLB seasons.<\/p>\n
The nine players besides Sheets who have served as the Padres\u2019 left fielder this season are batting a combined .192\/.234\/.260 while in that spot.<\/p>\n
Catchers Elias D\u00edaz and Mart\u00edn Maldonado are lauded by Shildt and others for their management of the pitching staff and ability to control baserunners, but they have the second-lowest OPS among all MLB catching groups.<\/p>\n
A total of 11 players have served as Padres\u2019 DH, and they have a collective .573 OPS (29th in MLB). Trenton Brooks has been the DH for 10 of the past 26 games, and he is batting .154 (4-for-26) with a .416 OPS in that role.<\/p>\n
The Padres are batting .161 (two homers, no doubles) in 87 pinch-hit at-bats. This is an underappreciated drop-off from what last year\u2019s pinch-hitters provided with a .212 average and (six homers, four doubles).<\/p>\n
![\"Xander](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-padres-0707-003.jpg\")
Xander Bogaerts\u00a0 #2 of the San Diego Padres flies out with the bases loaded in the first inning against the Texas Rangers at Petco Park on July 6, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Photo by K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)
\nFire and ice<\/p>\n
The Padres began 2025 as if Opening Day was Game 163 of the \u201824 season.<\/p>\n
They looked a lot like the team that hit .267 with a .768 OPS and averaged 4.95 runs per game while going 43-20 after the All-Star break last season, one of the 12 best second halves in the past quarter century.<\/p>\n
Through their first 42 games this year, during which the Padres\u2019 27-15 record was third-best in the major leagues, they averaged 4.66 runs per game (12th in the major leagues) and hit an MLB-best .269 with a .744 OPS (eighth). Their .284 batting average with runners in scoring position was fourth best among MLB\u2019s 30 teams.<\/p>\n
They scored five or more runs in 45% (19) of those 42 games.<\/p>\n
In the 54 games since, during which they are 27-31, the Padres have hit .230 (27th) with a .653 OPS (28th) and averaged 3.55 runs per game (27th). Their .205 batting average with runners in scoring position in the past 54 games ranks 29th.<\/p>\n
They have scored five runs or more in 31% (17) of the past 54 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a weird season,\u201d hitting coach Victor Rodriguez said. \u201cWe started so good. We\u2019re missing something to take off again.\u201d<\/p>\n
For one thing, the Padres started facing better teams, which generally meant facing better pitching.\u00a0They have played 25 teams with losing records over their past 54 games.<\/p>\n
In all, the Padres are 18-31 against teams with winning records and 34-13 against teams with sub-.500 records. While it is common for playoff teams to get the bulk of their victories against losing teams, the Padres\u2019 .367 winning percentage against winning teams is the fourth-worst mark in the major leagues.<\/p>\n
The Padres have also played exactly twice as many games (22) against teams with top-10 pitching staffs over their past 54 games as they did in their first 42 games.<\/p>\n
The Padres were at one point talking a lot \u2014 like after almost every game throughout June \u2014 about the quality of pitching they were facing. But that mostly stopped a couple weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayoff teams have good pitching,\u201d Shildt said at one point. \u201cThat\u2019s what you\u2019re going to face.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Manny](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-padres-0711-034.jpg\")
Manny Machado #13 of the San Diego Padres\u00a0rounds the bases after hitting solo home run in the fifth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Petco Park on July 10, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Photo by K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)
\nCan it change?<\/p>\n
The Padres \u2014 especially Shildt, who is the only member of the organization who speaks after every game \u2014 have talked so much about \u201cquality at-bats\u201d in the wake of low-scoring losses that it has veered into white noise.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not wrong. But the problem was illustrated in the seventh inning of a tie game on June 29 in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n
With one out, Tatis drew a walk, Bogaerts doubled and Sheets was intentionally walked. That brought up Jose Iglesias, a veteran batter, with the bases loaded.<\/p>\n
Iglesias swung at a first-pitch fastball at the top of the zone and then chased a fastball above the zone that he grounded weakly to second base. Iglesias barely beat out a double-play relay, so his fielder\u2019s choice gave the Padres a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
But it was a lamentable at-bat. When Cronenworth followed by flying out to center field on the eighth pitch of his at-bat, the inning was over. Two innings later, the Padres had lost 3-2.<\/p>\n
Four of the five at-bats would be considered quality at-bats by most measures. But when a team relies on stringing together good plate appearance after good plate appearance after good plate appearance, the chain is prone to breaking.<\/p>\n
That is who the Padres are.<\/p>\n
It would be much easier to hit more home runs.<\/p>\n
Except, well \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not that easy to hit home runs,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
He had just finished throwing batting practice when he said that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m out there throwing Puerto Rican meatballs,\u201d the Puerto Rican Rodriguez said. \u201cAnd they are trying, and they can\u2019t hit home runs every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Padres don\u2019t hit home runs very often. Their 83 homers are fourth fewest in the majors, and they have scored an MLB-low 30% of their runs via homers.<\/p>\n
In their first season with Rodriguez as their hitting coach, the Padres did not show much slug early in the season before heating up in the summer and finishing with the 10th-most homers in the majors.<\/p>\n
But his emphasis on line drives had started to manifest in more home runs by this point in \u201924.<\/p>\n
The Padres did go on a little surge (for them) right before the break, hitting 10 home runs in a nine-game span.<\/p>\n
That included Merrill\u2019s two last Saturday and four by Machado. It was those two players that did much of the heavy lifting in the second half last season, batting a combined .302 with a .906 OPS and 40 home runs over the season\u2019s final 89 games.<\/p>\n
And a funny thing happened around the time the Padres stopped shrugging and publicly lamenting they were going up against an inordinate number of the game\u2019s top starters and bullpens.<\/p>\n
They started to hit better, at least enough to win five of their final eight games heading into the break. They have scored four or more runs in six of their past 12 games, a rate that is nearly 20 percentage points higher than they had the previous 42 games.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez and his staff have done nothing different except re-emphasize shrinking the strike zone and focusing on the chance on the right pitch in a hitter\u2019s count.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it is conversations we\u2019ve had as a group, trying to get back to what we as a group collectively did at the beginning of the year,\u201d Cronenworth said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re in a good spot,\u201d Machado said. \u201cWe got hot early, and we kind of have been just surviving after that. It\u2019s a roller coaster. You can\u2019t really be hot all year. \u2026 We did start to get hot as a group (the past few weeks).\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: July 17, 2025 at 2:28 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 It seems pretty plain to Manny Machado. \u201cWe played our worst ball so far,\u201d he said…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":70954,"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-70953","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\/114870776220310635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70953","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=70953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}