Good morning,
The first full month of the season is over for the Padres, who have the final day of April off.
They seem convinced, 30 games in, that they are a really good team.
There are strong signs they are at least a contender, beginning with their 19-11 record, which is tied for fourth best in the major leagues.
Yes, they were an MLB-best 18-8 on Saturday before losing three of their past four games.
Yesterday’s 5-4 defeat to the Cubs was the Padres’ second straight loss, the first time that has happened since March. They lost a series for the first time in eight tries.
But again, it is still April. So none of this is bankable. Not the good, not the bad.
We still don’t know much about the Padres — not with the way they have come back from five deficits of four runs or more, their starting rotation in flux and their biggest stars stuck in the mud.
Let’s start today with the latter issue.
The Padres keep talking with assurance about how good they are going to be when the players that are supposed to hit start hitting.
Yesterday it was bench coach Randy Knorr’s turn to prophesy, as he managed the team in place of Craig Stammen, who was attending a funeral.
“I’m pretty excited, because at some point, you know, you look at the back of the baseball card and they all hit the same at the end of the year,” Knorr said. “So I’m waiting for them to get hot, and once they get hot, we’re gonna roll off a bunch of wins again. It’s just a matter of time, waiting for them to get ready and feel comfortable again. Sometimes guys get off to slow starts, but at the end of the season, they usually end up hitting the same all year.”
It is far too early in the season to doubt that what he (and virtually everyone else in the organization) says is true.
Manny Machado has as consistent and as long a track record as any player in the major leagues. Fernando Tatis Jr. is doing a lot of things right, including hitting the ball hard as often as anyone in the major leagues. Jackson Merrill is too talented to be this discombobulated much longer.
But, um, sooner than later would be better.
Because while it seems right to paint their record as all the more impressive when their top players are not producing, what they have done can also be seen as them wasting opportunities.
Not to overreact to two days that saw the Padres lose two games in a row for the first time since March, but the Dodgers also lost both of the past two days. Yesterday was the Padres’ final game in April. Five months remain. But remember last September when the Padres were chasing the fading Dodgers but kept losing every time the Dodgers lost? The games count the same now as they will four months from now.
More than anything, the past two days illustrate how thin the margins can be and how fortunate the Padres have been and how being resilient doesn’t always work out.
While going 16-4 from April 5 through Monday, the Padres won all eight games in which they erased a deficit. Yesterday was the second game in a row in which they came back from being down multiple runs and ended up losing.
You can read about what happened yesterday in my game story (here).
We will go deeper on a few aspects of the game — including Matt Waldron’s day, Merrill’s dropped fly ball that cost the Padres a run and Nick Castellanos possibly finding his rhythm.
But about those guys who are supposed to be doing the bulk of the heavy lifting on offense.
Upside down
The Padres mixed it up a little yesterday, batting Merrill leadoff for the first time this season with Tatis second and Machado third. (Tatis has most often hit second and Machado most often hit fourth.)
It didn’t work out, as they went a combined 1-for-10 plus Merrill’s walk in the eighth inning and Tatis’ sacrifice fly in the eighth. The only hit was Tatis’ 58 mph roller to shortstop in the seventh. Machado grounded into a rally-ending double play in the eighth.
The move had its genesis in Ramón Laureano getting a day off and the search for something.
“Get something going,” Knorr said of the reasoning. “Figured we would put Jackson up there, let him try that for a little bit and see if it can motivate us to get going in the first. We’ve been not hitting that great going into the game — the first couple innings. So wanted to mix it up a little bit.”
The Padres entered yesterday’s game batting .135/.229/.167 and having scored just six runs in the first inning. Their leadoff hitter was 2-for-25 with three walks and had been hit by a pitch in the first inning.
Entering yesterday, Machado, Merrill and Tatis had combined to hit .333/.410/.418 in the 52 innings in which all three had plate appearances. They also went 0-for-3 in 13 of those innings.
What is arguably most incongruous and vexing about what has happened this first month is that the Padres have exhibited signs they might have their deepest lineup in years.
Consider, the Padres have gotten at least four hits from the bottom four spots in their lineup in 12 games this season. They have gotten at least four hits from the top four spots in their lineup in 14 games. And one of those games was one in which Machado didn’t play, and another was in a game in which Tatis sat.
That is astonishing.
So is this:
Yes, I left out the No.5 spot in the order. That was to compare four batters to four batters, top to bottom. And, anyway, the most frequent No.5 batter has been Xander Bogaerts, the only member of the Core Four to be producing and arguably the team’s MVP so far.
“It’s not just about the big guys,” Tatis said. “To go all the way and perform in this long marathon, you need the whole team to win ballgames.”
So true.
And the whole team must include the guys who got their big contracts because they are supposed to be the ones carrying the team over the long haul.
Fortunately for the Padres, there are five months remaining.
Tatis’ best calendar month is June. Machado’s is July. Merrill has a .920 OPS over his first two Augusts and Septembers.
Bump in the road
The Padres’ past three losses have been pinned on the bullpen. And it was pretty much a group effort.
All but one of the team’s eight relievers has been involved, as the bullpen squandered a five-run lead and let the game get out of hand Sunday against the Diamondbacks and then let tie games get away the past two days.
Mason Miller is the only reliever not culpable in one of those losses. However, he did allow his first two runs of the season while closing out Monday’s victory.
In the past four games, the bullpen has allowed 20 runs over 14⅓ innings.
Before you fret too much, you need to look back to almost exactly one year ago and remember that an awesome bullpen had an awful stretch.
From May 6 to May 13, 2025, Padres relievers allowed runs in all six games they pitched and lost three leads. In all, they surrendered 31 runs in 17⅔ innings in that span.
The Padres bullpen went on to lead the major leagues in ERA, WHIP and batting average last season.
Still talking about it
Tatis knew he had barely gotten under his 103 mph sacrifice fly in the eighth inning that got the Padres to 5-4.
“Been close for a while now,” he said. “But just a sacrifice fly.”
He shook his head as he walked away from the plate, knowing he had done his job but knowing he had just missed.
“Just not happy,” he said. “Going through it and just trying to figure it out. … I’m doing everything. Hitting early, hitting in batting practice after. It still doesn’t turn around. So I don’t know. I’m trying to figure it out.”
We have written so much about Tatis hitting the ball hard and having some bad fortune, staying with his approach of hitting to all fields and how he has handled his frustration pretty well (and way better than he has in the past).
We won’t go in depth again today.
But let’s recap some of the strangeness, as Tatis remains homerless 30 games into the season.
That is six times as long as he had ever gone into any of his previous six MLB seasons without a home run. At 131 plate appearances into the season, he is one plate appearance shy of matching the longest homerless drought of his career (from July 25 to Aug. 24 last season).
Tatis’ 64.7% hard-hit rate is tied with the Nationals’ James Wood for highest in the major leagues. Tatis has hit 25 balls with an exit velocity of 105 mph or harder, tied for second most in the majors.The other 10 players with at least 20 such balls in play have at least five home runs.
And it is not like Tatis is pounding the ball into the ground disproportionately. His 48.8% groundball rate is on par with every season of his career. He had a 46.2% groundball rate in 2021, when he led the NL with 42 home runs.
Both his hard-hit rate and 38% rate of hitting the ball in the launch angle sweet spot (between 8 and 32 degrees) is the highest of his career by a fair amount.
Now, his line drive rate is the highest of his career, and his fly ball rate is the lowest of his career.
Meanwhile, there has been some improvement in Tatis’ batted-ball luck.
While it has been all on the strength of singles, Tatis has improved his batting average 61 points (to .250) by going 18-for-59 (.305) over his past 16 games. His batting average on balls in play over that span is .400, compared to .256 in 14 games before that.
Yesterday’s dribbler for a single ewas the third of his past 11 hits to have an exit velocity of no higher than 61 mph. The average on the other eight hits in that span: 102.2 mph.
Settling in?
Castellanos stopped an 0-for-19 skid with a two-run single on Monday. Yesterday, he hit his first homer of the season, a two-run blast to left field off Jameson Taillon.
He said he would find a way to be a role player for the first time in his career, and maybe he is doing so.
“I’m still figuring that out,” he said. “I don’t want to say I figured anything out yet, but I think just familiarity with the layout, you know? I guess just getting more comfortable as time goes on.”
Castellanos, who has played at least 132 games every full season since 2017, is batting .164 with a .493 OPS in 59 plate appearances.
We probably shouldn’t read too much into what I’m about to tell you. Past results are not a reliable indicator of future success, and Castellanos has been playing a long time.
Nonetheless, it is interesting how well Castellanos has been set up for success in most of his 14 starts this season.
He entered yesterday having gone 5-for-13 with a double and a home run against Taillon in their career matchups. So it made sense that yesterday would be a day to give Laureano some rest and get Castellanos in the lineup in left field.
But the reality is Castellanos has been put in many seemingly favorable matchups this season.
He has hit well in the past against almost every one of the 12 starting pitchers he has faced in 2026. (He was in the lineup against the Rockies in both games Jimmy Herget served as opener.) Going into his meetings with those starters this season, Castellanos was a combined .313/.347/.438 hitter in 118 plate appearances against them. He has hit .143/.217/.333 in 23 plate appearances against those starters this season.
Healthy Manny
Machado, who departed Monday’s game with cramping in his left calf and missed Tuesday’s game, served as the designated hitter yesterday. The Padres are off today, and he is expected to play third base Friday against the White Sox.
“We just wanted to give him one more day, make sure it was nothing too terrible,” Knorr said. “Day off tomorrow, and then he said he’s ready to go.”
Patience
Merrill entered yesterday chasing pitches outside the strike zone at a 38.3% rate, 15th highest in the major leagues. He had swung at the first pitch of a plate appearance more than all but 11 players who have been up at least 100 times. He was ahead in the count in just 36 of his 124 plate appearances. Just 22% of the pitches he has seen have been when he is ahead in the count, a lower ratio than all but six players.
He has in the past declared, “I’m not a walker.”
But yesterday, Merrill did draw his 10th walk. It came in the eighth inning with the Padres down by two runs, and it loaded the bases with no outs.
It was his eighth walk in a high- or medium-leverage situation.
That would seem to show he is capable of locking in when it matters.
To him, it is illustrative of the good pitches he is missing.
“I think I’m walking more because I’m missing the pitch to hit in the at-bat and fouling it off,” Merrill said. “I’m getting deeper in the at-bat (when), realistically, I want to hit that cutter that’s down the middle and try and do some damage. But obviously it’s not happening right now. Just (have to) be patient.”
Not this time
Merrill’s three home run robberies this season have had us debating which one was best.
Yesterday, he didn’t appear to need to leap at the wall to catch a deep drive by Michael Conforto in the second inning.
Jackson Merrill JUST misses robbing a home run from Michael Conforto#Padres #ForTheFaithful #Cubs pic.twitter.com/fk7IyanlGX
— Carlos (@LFGPads19) April 29, 2026
With Merrill airborne a couple feet from the wall, the ball bounced off the heel of his glove and fell to the ground. Conforto was awarded a double, and he would go on to score the game’s first run.
“I dropped it,” Merrill said. “That’s all I’m gonna give you. It didn’t go in my glove.”
That was not all he gave, because he has from the time he arrived in the big leagues been a pro when it comes to dealing with the media.
“I went up for it, I didn’t catch it,” he said. “S—t happens. … Guy pieced it good. I thought it was gonna keep going, and it just kind of died at the end there, and I just didn’t catch it.”
According to a Padres spokesperson, who checked with the official scorer, the play was ruled a hit because Merrill was not camped out under the ball and was attempting to make a home run-robbing play.
Good enough?
Despite that uniquely funky pitch he is known for, Waldron’s success is predicated on his fastball command. And yesterday, he was not feeling his four-seam fastball.
So he threw it just five times among his 83 pitches. The 6% rate was less than he had thrown his four-seamer in all but one of his previous 35 career starts.
Waldron relied primarily on his knuckleball yesterday and also leaned on his sinker, cutter and sweeper more than usual.
One of those sweepers hung up in the strike zone, and Pete Crow-Armstrong yanked it down the line and over the right field wall for a two-run homer in the fourth inning.
But given the unfortunate run in the second inning and the fact he was facing an offense ranked third in runs per game (5.47), fourth in OPS (.777) and leading the league in on-base percentage (.353), Waldron did well to make it through five innings allowing just the three runs on six hits and a walk.
Since the Padres tied the game in the bottom of the fifth, it seems Waldron’s outing was the very definition of keeping his team in the game.
“Ultimately, I’m trying to take a step in the right direction to give our (team) a chance to win a ballgame,” he said. “It was a little bumpy there, but I feel like I’m making strides in the right direction.”
It was Waldron’s best start of the three he has made since Nick Pivetta went on the injured list. And to do it with one pitch tied behind his back says something about his development.
As for Waldron’s future in the rotation, that could well be determined by what happens in his next start.
Walker Buehler and Germán Márquez appear to have a clear edge on Waldron if the Padres stick with a five-man rotation when Griffin Canning is activated, likely next week.
Indications are that Canning, who is working back from last season’s Achilles surgery, will make one more rehab start in Triple-A. Then the Padres will have decisions to make about how to structure their starting pitching.
The myriad possibilities will be discussed in a story by Jeff Sanders that will be posted on our Padres page later today.
Tough call
Waldron has not historically had as many pitches in the strike zone called balls as you might think, given that he throws a knuckleball. (He had 10 strikes called balls in 2024, when he pitched 146 innings. Seven of those were knuckleballs.)
He did thrown one knuckleball almost in the middle of the strike zone yesterday that Mark Ripperger called a ball.
Waldron was about to tap his head before catcher Luis Campusano did so.
The pitch was about as comfortably in the zone as any the Padres have successfully challenged this season.
“I mean, if he doesn’t call that, he’ll never call it,” Waldron said. “Like, that thing was three inches from the heart of the zone. I mean, (the umpire) has got a tough job back there, for sure.”
Crone groan
Jake Cronenworth has never been this bad for this long.
Cronenworth walked and scored yesterday but finished 0-for-2 and had his batting average drop to .146 for the season. The walk lifted his on-base percentage to .276. But those numbers, along with his .202 slugging percentage are all worst of his career 29 games into a season.
The batting average and slugging percentage are the lowest of any 29-game stretch in his career.
“It’s obviously not the start I want,” Cronenworth said. “It’s been really frustrating. I don’t think I’ve put in a better work (in an) offseason going into spring training. Same thing in spring training. And for this to be the start that I have is obviously really frustrating for me. But I think at the end of the day, I can trust in the process. It’s been really, really hard. I’ve stayed here late after games to hit in the cage. I’ve gotten here at noon to hit early.”
Cronenworth had one of his most consistent seasons in 2025, hitting .246 with a .744 OPS. It was the first season outside his rookie year (the 60-game 2020 season) in which he did not have highly disparate streaks.
“Hasn’t been easy,” Cronenworth said of his current skid. “But it’s one of those things — you never hope it happens, but you come out stronger on the other side.”
Tidbits
Ty France started at first base yesterday in part because Taillon has reverse splits, meaning he does better against left-handed batters despite being right-handed. Also, Gavin Sheets’ elbow was still hurting after he took a 97 mph fastball from Edward Cabrera off his the upper portion of his right arm. Sheets was sent up to pinch-hit in yesterday’s ninth inning knowing he likely would not. But he was ready to do so if Cubs manager Craig Counsell had not gone to left-hander Hoby Milner. That caused Knorr to use Laureano. Said Sheets: “I was ready for the moment if they needed me. That’s what I told them — ‘If you need an at-bat, I can give you an at-bat.’”
Miguel Andujar hit his first home run with the Padres yesterday as well. His last home run was Sept. 19 while playing for the Reds. Also on Sept. 19, Castellanos hit his final home run as a member of the Phillies.
For as little as he has played and as little as he has hit, Castellanos has stepped up in some big moments. Yesterday’s homer gave him his second game-tying RBI of the season. That is tied with Machado for the team lead. Castellanos also has three go-ahead RBIs, tied with Sheets and Machado for second behind Laureano (four).
Machado said last week that he was “done” challenging strike calls after losing three ABS challenges in a row. But he tapped his helmet in the fourth inning yesterday — and won. The pitch was shown to have been an inch outside.
Taillon threw the 13th quality start against the Padres this season but the first in the past seven games.
The Padres’ three hits yesterday tied a season low set three other times.
Phillip Molnar wrote a story (here) in which he talked to economists about the Padres’ pending sale and what the $3.9 billion means for the rest of MLB’s teams.
Sometimes we don’t adequately consider the quality of the opponent – both good and bad — the Padres are playing. Tom Krasovic wrote (here) about the Cubs and Padres matchup that was a replay of last October and could be a preview of this October.
All right, that’s it for me.
No game today.
The next newsletter will arrive in your inbox Saturday morning following tomorrow night’s game against the White Sox.