Rodolfo Durán spent more than six years in the Phillies organization after signing as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic. He played two years in the Yankees system, another year in the Royals system and then spent all of 2025 at Triple-A El Paso.

After the season, Durán didn’t dangle in minor league free agency long before re-upping with the Padres.

No, he didn’t sniff a big-league call-up last year, but he got the next-best thing: plate appearances, more than he ever had anywhere else.

“They gave me the opportunity,” Durán said. “Last year I played a lot. As a free agent, as a minor leaguer, you want to play and you want to keep showing them what you got and to get that chance.”

The 16 home runs that he hit while sharing time behind the plate with Luis Campusano were two shy of his career high, while his OPS (.847) across 352 plate appearances was the highest of his career. He teamed with then-El Paso hitting coach Raul Padron to get better as the season went — he had a .276 OPS in April, a .686 OPS in May, a .750 OPS in June, an .850 OPS in July and a 1.201 OPS in August before cooling some in September (.846) — got a second big-league invite after re-signing with the Padres and got a lot more run this year in Cactus League play.

Durán hit three homers in 24 spring at-bats and had four longballs in 23 games at Triple-A El Paso this year when Campusano’s broken toe earned him his first big-league call-up at 28 years old.

His only hit in 15 plate appearances so far is a home run, but Durán’s contributions behind the plate have been lauded from the jump. Pitchers have a 1.88 ERA throwing to Durán after he caught a 1-0 shutout on Monday, an effort aided by throwing out two of three would-be base-stealers at second base. He’s also 5-for-5 in ABS challenges after a ninth-inning challenge locked a wild Mason Miller back in for the save.

Durán was 0-for-2 at the plate with a walk.

“(That) was definitely a Rodolfo Durán game,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “If he’d have got that line drive to left field to fall in (in the third inning) he couldn’t have had a better game, honestly. Threw a couple guys out, caught a shutout. We feel really comfortable with him behind the plate. … When we got him last year as a six-year free agent, we didn’t know a ton about him, and he just proved that he’s everything that we needed and wanted from a guy that could be our third catcher.

“Right now, he’s doing a really good job filling in for Campy, handling the ace on our staff (Michael King) and shutting out one of the best teams in all baseball.”

Indeed, not a bad start to a long-awaited big-league call-up.

“This has been a very, very wonderful experience,” Durán said. “The things that I’ve accomplished, hit a home run, have a shutout, this feels amazing.”

Andujar, anywhere, any time

Miguel Andujar on Tuesday was in the two-hole for the third straight game and fourth time this season, the latest lineup wrinkle as Stammen looks to maximize scoring opportunities while three of his best hitters — Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado — remain mired in deep slumps.

Entering Tuesday, Andujar was hitting .298/.319/.504 for an .822 OPS that ranks third among Padres with at least 75 plate appearances, behind Gavin Sheets (.876) and Ty France (.822).

Andujar is hitting .294/.294/.706 with two of his four homers in his four games out of the two-hole. While he’s spent most of his time batting sixth (.870 OPS) or seventh (.647 OPS), Andujar also has four starts in the three-hole (1.000 OPS), three in the four-hole (1.083 OPS) and three in the five-hole (.350 OPS).

“He’s just a hitter,” Stammen said. “He goes up there and hits the ball hard, hits line drives. We like his at-bats, puts the ball in play quite a bit … and he can hit anywhere in the lineup. He’s just a hitter.”

Notable

RHP Germán Márquez has resumed throwing bullpens in his push to return from the forearm nerve inflammation that sent him to the injured list earlier this month. Meanwhile, Campusano is steadily increasing baseball activity to the point that rehab action appears on the horizon. “Campy is progressing really well,” Stammen said. “His toe’s getting better. It’s less painful. He’s starting to do some baseball activities. Hopefully, in the next week or two, we got him playing some games and then hopefully back on the team.”
Meanwhile, 2B Jake Cronenworth remains in concussion protocol without much progress. “Going through a lot of testing,” Stammen said, “slowly getting a little bit better here and there, but still not out of the woods and a little bit a ways away.”