Good morning from Pittsburgh,
Manny told you.
“I just like the at-bats we’re taking,” Manny Machado said at the end of the Padres’ homestand, when they were 2-4 and ranked in the bottom five in the major leagues in batting average, OPS and runs scored. “We’re taking really, really good at-bats, quality at-bats. Whenever you can take consistently quality at-bats … and we can put that stress on those pitchers, even though we line out … as much as we can try to wear those guys out and have quality at-bats, throughout the season we’ll come up on top.”
He wasn’t the only one saying that sort of thing.
And the Padres were talking to themselves as much as they were telling us. They needed every member of the offense to believe it. They needed it to be consistent and universal.
And now they have gotten in a groove.
Last night, the Padres had 11 hits and walked five times in a 5-0 victory over the Pirates. The day before, they had 12 hits and walked three times in an 8-6 victory over the Red Sox.
The first of their three consecutive victories that has them at .500 for the first time this season was Saturday. It wasn’t as overt of an offensive success, but the Padres had some sensational at-bats while seeing a season-high 167 pitches and getting seven hits and walking five times in that night’s 3-2 win.
Even the best approach will not mean double-digit hits every day. The Padres have simply executed what they set out to do the past three days — two of them against extremely talented and extremely inexperienced starting pitchers.
But the Padres are setting a tone for their offense early in the season.
And if they can continue to have grinding, relentless at-bats on a regular basis, that should translate into success.
“I think it’s sticking to it,” Xander Bogaerts said last night when talking about the Padres’ approach. “Today, we wanted to get the starter out of the game early. I feel like he was cruising a little bit in the beginning. I mean, the guy has got good stuff. He throws hard, he’s got really good pitches. But that was the approach — try to get him out as early as possible. And we did that, got into the bullpen. It’s exactly what we wanted to do, and it’s nice to see that it worked.”
Last night’s Pirates starter Bubba Chandler, once he harnesses his stuff and develops at least one more (or better) secondary pitch, could be a top-tier pitcher for a long time. He is good now.
Chandler throws 100 mph and has a slider that can make a batter look foolish. But he gets a little wayward with both pitches. The Padres were disciplined with his bad offerings, fought off enough good ones and had him at 83 pitches and out of the game in the fifth inning.
It was similar to what they did against rookie Connelly Early on Saturday and to the veteran Ranger Suarez on Sunday in Boston.
Through 10 games, the Padres rank in the top 10 in contact rate on pitches in the zone and in the top five in chase rate. They have struck out relatively few times, ranking among the 10 best teams in the majors despite facing some of the most prodigious strikeout pitchers in the game.
Chandler began last night with a 1-2-3 first inning in 10 pitches. It would be the last time the Padres went down in order.
After the Core Four (Bogaerts, Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr.) carried them on Sunday the Padres got a double and a single from the bottom three batters in their order last night.
Nick Castellanos, batting seventh, had the Padres’ first hit and later doubled in their first run. Freddy Fermin doubled and scored in the sixth inning and singled and scored in the eighth. Jake Cronenworth singled and also doubled in a run.
“We talked about our lineup scoring runs one through nine and it being a collective group effort to score runs — not just individuals trying to have great games, but how can they have a great game together as a one through nine,” manager Craig Stammen said after last night’s game. “And today was indicative of that. Even though guys were not getting hits, they were still working good at-bats, making the pitcher a little tired, making him work fouling pitches off and sticking to the game plan. You could see the second time we went through the lineup, we had much better at-bats and the third time (was) even better. It’s just great to see everybody collectively buying into a plan and then executing it.”
Back on the Marq
My game story (here) focused largely on the five scoreless innings turned in by Germán Márquez, who earned his first win in 13 starts.
The big improvement over his first start for the Padres, in which he allowed the Giants four runs in three innings, was the command of his curveball. He may have been tipping his pitches that first start, but he was also leaving a lot of curveballs up in the zone and uncompetitively out of the zone.
He hung some last night as well. But he was much, much sharper and mostly kept the pitch down in the zone.
Márquez ended up throwing his curveball 38 times among his 92 pitches, more than any other pitch and a higher percentage (41%) of the time than all but four of his previous 201 big-league starts.
“I think early we saw him spike a couple, like he did in the previous start,” Stammen said. “And then all of a sudden, the more he threw it, the more he kind of found it, found the feeling for it, for throwing for a strike. … And then he had a 95 mph fastball to go with it, too. That doesn’t hurt, throwing a few sinkers and getting some ground balls, getting some broken bats. I think what we saw today, that’s who he is, and that’s how he’s going to have success.”
Picking it up
The Padres had two relievers unavailable and two they were going to stay away from at virtually all cost last night.
That was half their bullpen down because of recent workload.
So it was an appreciable contribution by Ron Marinaccio and David Morgan going two innings apiece in relief of Márquez to close out last night’s game.
“We talked about all through spring training how deep our bullpen is and how we feel comfortable with almost everybody that we bring into the game,” Stammen said. “… Those guys putting up zeros and finishing the shutout — we just trust every guy in our bullpen. The rest of the guys kind of handled the load yesterday with the short start, and (Marinaccio and Morgan) had to pick up those guys to keep them fresh for the next day. The bullpen … they work together. They’re their own little team out there, and they keep each other healthy. They keep each other fresh. Today was a great example of that.”
Double Play Kid
Morgan was in trouble right away last night.
He walked the first two batters he faced in the eighth inning and was behind 2-1 to cleanup batter Ryan O‘Hearn.
He got out of the jam the same way he often has in what is still less than a full year in the major leagues: the double play.
Morgan knew O’Hearn was looking to pull a fly ball, so he threw him a sinker away to try to get a grounder. It worked, as it often does.
O’Hearn grounded a ball to the right side, which Jake Cronenworth fielded to start a double play.
“The sinker is a little ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, something I go to when I need it,” Morgan said. “And that was a situation I needed it.”
The double play was the ninth of Morgan’s career, a remarkable number in just 54⅓ innings. Since his major league debut on May 26, his 21.4% GIDP rate (nine double plays in 42 double-play opportunities) is third highest among relief pitchers with at least 40 opportunities in that span.
Maybe tonight
Mason Miller had pitched two consecutive days, and the Padres had too big a lead for him to be needed last night anyway.
But Miller finally has a chance to pitch in the ballpark he grew up going to as a fan.
“It’s something I’ve looked forward to since I put on a big-league uniform for the first time,” Miller said yesterday afternoon. “Waited a couple years for it, but it’s here now, and I get to come here every year now.”
Miller grew up in Bethel Park, about 40 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, and he would take the “T” light rail system to the stop near PNC Park frequently to watch the Pirates.
He expected to make the trip last season when the Athletics visited in September, but he had been traded to the Padres by then. He was on the injured list when the A’s came here in 2023.
He recalled his first autograph (Colby Rasmus) and Zach Duke tossing him his first ball. He said the ball Andrew McCutchen threw him on his 14th birthday is in a case at home alongside balls commemorating milestones he has achieved as a major leaguer.
He actually did pitch at PNC Park once before, in high school.
But it is his time as a fan that was on his mind yesterday.
“I probably sat everywhere in the stadium and watched a lot of good baseball,” he said. “… Being a kid, it just takes me back, reminds me a lot of those memories and things that playing every day in the big leagues now sometimes (are) easy to overlook. But it’s a good grounding to remember where you came from and remember those seats that the kids are in now.”
Still tinkering
Eventually, Stammen will settle on a batting order.
At least it seems as if he would like to.
“I’ve been — we’ve been — moving the lineup around quite a bit,” he said before last night’s game. “So they’re probably not super comfortable yet. But sooner or later, we’re gonna get to the point where they’re very comfortable where they’re hitting.”
The Padres had their 10th different lineup yesterday, though the top four spots remained the same.
As Jeff Sanders wrote (here) in his game preview, the Padres rank last in the major leagues in OPS out of the leadoff spot, where Fernando Tatis Jr., Jake Cronenworth and, for the past two games, Ramón Leaureano have hit.
Laureano hit an RBI double in the eighth inning for his first hit in two games as the Padres’ leadoff hitter.
He is 1-for-10 in that spot and 8-for-26 in the other four spots he has hit.
However, Stammen seems to like what Laureano brings atop the order.
“I think just his overall personality and attitude, he’s going to be just fine in that leadoff spot,” Stammen said. “For me, that’s the number one thing in the leadoff spot is someone wanting to do it, being willing to do it and then being excited about it and then being that person that everybody can feed off of at the top. And so Ramon checks all those boxes. Croney kind of checks all those boxes too. Tati has checked all those boxes. But we’re just trying a few new things and seeing how it goes.”
Tidbits
Bogaerts ran his on-base streak to six plate appearances with a walk and a single last night before making an out his third time up. He finished 2-for-4 and is 5-for-7 with two walks over the past two games.
The Padres’ five doubles last night were their most in 48 games (since Aug. 17). They rank second-to-last in the majors with five home runs but are tied for the second-most doubles.
Last night was the first time in four series this season that the Padres won the opener.
Machado has reached base in nine of 10 games. He was 1-for-4 with a walk last night and is batting .226 (7-for-31) but with a .415 on-base percentage thanks to his 10 walks. He has swung at just 22.1% of the pitches he has seen outside the strike zone.
Marinaccio has thrown four scoreless innings over his past three appearances after allowing two runs in his season debut.
Morgan has yet to allow a run in seven innings over five games.
Márquez is now 7-1 with a 1.71 ERA in eight career starts against the Pirates. No active player with at least five starts against them has a lower ERA.
All right, that’s it for me.
Gotta get my rest before No.1 vs. No.1 tonight. Nick Pivetta vs. Paul Skenes.
Talk to you tomorrow.