Good morning from my layover,
It really did seem we were going to be talking today about how the Padres blew an opportunity.
Blew lots of opportunities, actually.
Then they made it all moot. OK, not moot. But we can talk about what is troubling regarding the Padres’ offense another time. (Like in about 12 paragraphs.)
A walk, three singles and Gavin Sheets’ three-run homer brought the Padres back from three runs down in the ninth inning, and they beat the Rockies 10-8 victory.
You can read about the ending and the myriad missed opportunities earlier in my game story (here).
Today is a day for acknowledging that this team appears to have a knack for the comeback. Like, the legit comeback.
No other team has won a game in which it trailed by three or more runs in the ninth inning or later this season. The Padres did it for the second time yesterday.
There have been 15 comeback victories by teams that trailed by four or more runs this season. The Padres have an MLB-high four of them.
Yesterday was their sixth time winning a game in which they trailed at some point, and only one of those was a game they trailed by a single run early.
The others besides yesterday:
April 5 at Boston: Down 4-0 in the fourth, the Padres scored three runs in the next two innings. After Boston tied the game in the seventh, Jackson Merrill homered in the eighth and the Padres added an insurance run in the ninth in an 8-6 victory.
April 9 vs. the Rockies: The Padres trailed by a run in the third, 10th and 11th. They scored in the bottom of all three innings to tie the game three times before Xander Bogaerts’ grand slam in the 12th inning gave them a 7-3 victory.
April 11 vs the Rockies: The Padres trailed 4-0 before scoring three times in the third inning, three times in the fourth and three times in the sixth and cruising to a 9-5 victory.
April 15 vs. the Mariners: The Padres had reached base five times all night and trailed by four runs when the bottom of the ninth inning began. Just one of the next eight batters made an out. A walk, a double, a single, a sacrifice fly, two RBI singles and Merrill’s walk-off RBI double gave them a 7-6 victory.
Further, the Padres have won five other games in which they broke a tie at some point in the seventh inning or later — two games in which they took the lead for good in the ninth, two games in which they took the lead for good in the eighth and one game in which they took the lead for good in the seventh.
“We don’t give up ’til the last out is made, and we’ve shown it,” Manny Machado said.
Because this is a place where you come for honesty, let’s just acknowledge that is not literally true. The Padres have had a couple games this season where the preponderance of their at-bats in the last inning or two suggest they weren’t feeling a comeback.
But let’s not quibble. It’s a long season.
What they did yesterday was a manifestation of their unofficial mantra of just continuing to put good at-bats together.
Or, more accurately, to keep trying to put good at-bats together. And if you have a bad one, make sure to try harder next time.
Every team talks about its will to win and its confidence in every player on the roster. The Padres are making their words mean something.
“The feeling of, ‘Hey, we’re gonna win this’ is there,” Jake Cronenworth said. “It’s a matter of time before an inning breaks open.”
Seven different players have game-winning RBIs, 10 have go-ahead RBIs and five have game-tying RBIs. I keep track of another stat: Game-deciding RBIs. And 10 different players have at least one of those. Among the 13 position players, only Ty France, who has started just nine games, doesn’t have at least one of those four types of RBIs.
There is no way to dispute what the Padres are doing is impressive.
But Machado is keeping it real too.
“We’re struggling bad as an offense, and we’re not even hiding it,” he said. “We really are. But it’s a matter about winning games, and this team is all about the competition. Once you step on that field, we know that we prepared and we’re gonna go out there compete. And that’s what we’ve been showing. But yeah, we’re not even there as an offense.”
Even when they averaged nearly six runs a game for nearly two weeks, their best players remained struggling. As we discussed a few times in that stretch, that was impressive but also troubling. It is highly unlikely the Padres can win the required number of games for a postseason berth with three members of the Core Four struggling.
There are 181 qualifying major league hitters as of this morning. The Padres do not have anyone ranked in the top 50 in OPS.
You can’t quibble with Bogaerts’ .810 mark or Ramón Laureano’s .804, ranked 52nd and 55th, respectively. You will even take Sheets’ .733 (No.85).
You have to give credit to Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. coming through in some big moments, because that is part of what big-time players get paid to do.
But this cannot keep happening:
Wholly Sheets
From his first game with the Padres — when he hit a game-tying pinch-hit homer in the seventh inning on opening day in 2025 — Sheets has been a favorite of teammates and fans.
Because he has a penchant for the big hit.
First Padres player ever to hit a game-winning HR in the 9th inning or later on his birthday. https://t.co/ZYYX42P8ri
— Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) April 23, 2026
The plentiful Padres fans in the stands at Coors Field yesterday did not sing Sheets happy birthday, as he turned 30. But they did serenade him with the familiar “Holy Sheets” before and after he became the first player in MLB history to hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the ninth inning or later against the same opponent twice in the same calendar month.
He walked off the Rockies in the ninth inning on April 10.
No Padres player has had more games in which he twice drove in a go-ahead run than Sheets’ four. His 16 go-ahead RBIs since the start of last season are third on the team behind Machado’s 26 and Merrill’s 17. (Sheets has started 34 fewer games than Machado and 11 more than Merrill.)
All this is to say, Sheets entering the game as a pinch-hitter, staying in the game as the first baseman and then hitting the decisive home run is just the latest example of his being among the Padres’ most productive players in big moments.
“It’s tough to come up in that situation like he did and deliver like that,” Machado said. “You’re facing a closer throwing 100. You’ve been sitting out for seven innings in the altitude. It’s not easy to come up there into that situation. But he has been ready for whatever situation could come his way. He showed it last year.”
Still rolling
Mason Miller threw another scoreless inning.
This one was a little different than the others. But it had the same result.
And it was no big deal to him. Not yet.
By shutting down the Rockies in the ninth inning to close out the Padres’ victory, Miller tied Cla Meredith’s franchise record of 33⅔ scoreless innings set in 2006.
“Tying something is cool, but obviously you want to go a little further,” said Miller, who leads the major leagues with nine saves. “So hopefully just keep rolling and keep doing what I’m doing.”
It was no small feat to manager Craig Stammen. He knows about pitching in the mile-high air of Coors Field. He did it 25 times in his career and had a 1.22 ERA over 37 innings.
“He was able to do it in Coors Field,” Stammen said. “That’s not an easy spot to throw a scoreless inning. As you saw, we had a lot of really good pitchers come in the games over the last three days and weren’t able to come out with a scoreless inning. It’s almost like giving up one run in Coors is actually a good inning in my mind. That’s limiting the damage. And he came in in a big situation in the ninth and closed it down for us.”
It was Miller’s ninth save in nine tries. He has not allowed a run since Aug. 5, his second appearance for the Padres. The next day, he began the streak that has now stretched to 32 games.
A different streak did come to an end yesterday, as Miller got through the ninth on a groundout, a single and a double play.
It was the first time in 24 appearances that Miller did not record a strikeout.
During that 23-game streak, 56 of his 77 outs were by strikeout.
Coors Field remains one of the 14 ballparks where Miller has never allowed a run. He worked 3⅓ innings in three appearances there last season.
“We’re all pitching in it, and you saw (Tuesday’s) 1-0 game, said Miller, whose seven pitches yesterday comprised his lightest workload of the season. “So we know it’s possible. I think it bothers you more if you let it.”
Waldron works through it
Matt Waldron walked up to Stammen in the dugout after facing nine batters and allowing four runs in the second inning and said, “Leave me in the game.”
Stammen really had no intention of removing Waldron. He had no one warming up. The Padres’ bullpen was a little thin, and anything can happen at Coors Field.
But it meant something to the manager that Waldron told him he wanted to go on. He told Stammen he would fix what was wrong and keep the Padres in the game. But even if he didn’t, he said, he wanted to cover some innings to save the relievers.
Said Stammen: “It was pretty awesome that he was able to articulate that in the moment and then back it up.”
Waldron went back out and recorded a 1-2-3 third, allowed a run in the fourth and then retired the Rockies in order again in the fifth. He was lifted after that, having thrown 82 pitches and with the Padres trailing by two runs.
In a place where, more than any other venue, a pitcher’s success is measured by limiting damage to keep his team in the game, Waldron accomplished that.
“Winning fixes everything,” Waldron said. “At the end of the day, these guys are happy, and so I can’t be too selfish.”
Not only might Waldron take the conviction he exhibited yesterday into his next outing, he has learned in his two starts working in place of the injured Nick Pivetta.
“I’ve been watching what Mike King does between each inning,” Waldron said. “He goes straight to the iPad.”
Waldron did that yesterday and after watching some of his pitches in the second inning figured out his lower half was not loving in rhythm as it should.
While his knuckleball was not dancing at its best all day, Waldron discovered the command of his fastball and sweeper that was missing in the first two innings. And that is really what is most important for him. The knuckleball, he and the Padres have decided after trial and error, is just a pitch in his arsenal.
“I feel like I’m still learning things out there throughout the midst of the game,” Waldron said.
Off course
We have spent a lot of time here discussing how well Tatis has fought off the frustration of some bad batted-ball luck and kept his composure and stayed with his approach even as he would like to actually hit a home run.
Well, something to keep an eye on is that he without a doubt had his worst batch of at-bats this season over the past couple days. They weren’t all in a row. He had a couple single Tuesday. He beat out an infield single yesterday while also striking out three times.That was after striking out twice in each of the first two games of the series.
But he also watched pitches down the middle and, more than anything, made poor swing decisions.
His swing to end his first strikeout yesterday came on a slider down and away on a pitch that never was going to be in the zone. The breaking ball that veers low and away has always been his kryptonite, and he has done excellent work to stay away from it this season.
But he swung at one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday as well.
Of the previous 28 breaking balls he saw in a similar spot this season, Tatis had swung at just six. He put two of those in play, both for singles.
In all, Tatis chased 10 of the 29 pitches (34.4%) he saw outside the zone in the three games in Denver, seven percentage points higher than he was going into the series. He has gone four games without a walk for the first time this season.
Tidbits
The Padres have scored an MLB-high 24 runs in the ninth inning while allowing an MLB-low one run. Of those 24 runs, 21 have been scored in victories.
Maybe if they got started earlier, they wouldn’t need all the comebacks. The Padres have scored three runs in the first inning, fewer than all but the Royals (2). The Padres are 11-2 when scoring first in a game. They are 6-6 when their opponent scores first.
Bogaerts was 2-for-3 with two walks and hit his fourth home run of the season. He was 5-for-11 with a home run and two walks in the series and is batting .379 (22-for-58) with a 1.074 OPS over his past 16 games (68 plate appearances). That is the third-highest average and ninth-highest OPS in the major leagues in that span (since April 5).
Bogaerts has hit .366 with a 1.102 OPS in 46 career games against the Rockies. That is the second-highest average among active players behind only Shohei Ohtani (.377) and the third-highest OPS behind Giancarlo Stanton (1.203) and Ohtani (1.185).
Laureano lined out in the first inning to run his hitless streak to 13 at-bats before finishing the day 3-for-6 with a triple and two RBIs.
Miguel Andujar (2-for-5) had his sixth multi-hit game. That is third on the team behind Bogaerts (8) and Laureano (7). Amdujar has started 14 times to Bogaerts’ 24 and Laureano’s 22.
Merrill has been on base 28 times this season and has scored a team-high 15 runs. Among players who have reached base at least 20 times this season, only four have scored more frequently than Merrill’s 53.6% rate.
The Padres will wear their City Connect uniforms Sunday. The Diamondbacks will wear theirs Saturday.
As if Coors Field is not beautiful enough. (Yes, Coors Field is gorgeous. It is for sure a top-10 ballpark, except for the fact it is a mile above sea level.) But anyway, the Padres dressed the place up by wearing their brown tops all three games.They are now 5-2 this season in their best road uniforms ever.
The Padres and Diamondbacks will play without the ability to challenge balls and strikes this weekend. The Hawk-Eye camera system that tracks pitches as they cross the plate via 12 cameras around each ballpark has not been set up at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú. That won’t disappoint Machado.
By the way, what I wrote above about Stammen’s numbers at Coors Field was not a misprint. Here is the entire list of players who have pitched at least 16 innings at Coors Field and had an ERA below 1.40:
All right, that’s it for me.
No game today. We will have coverage on our Padres page of some things the Padres did today in Mexico City and maybe a story on the offense if I can swing it. Next newsletter will arrive to your inbox Sunday morning.
Talk to you then.