Good morning,
That was what they needed.
A victory, certainly. There have not been enough of those the past month.
Maybe more, though, a start from Michael King that reminded the Padres (and King) what he can be.
“It’s huge,” manager Craig Stammen said. “We’ve always, throughout this little stretch that we’ve had where we haven’t played as good as we did at the beginning of the year, we’ve been looking, when Michael King starts, for him to kind of stop it for us. And tonight he definitely did that. That’s what we’ve become accustomed to with him. And his little funk coincided with our team’s funk. So I think going forward we feel really good about Michael every time he goes out there. Tonight, he showed why we feel very comfortable with him.”
You can read about King’s seven scoreless innings in Jeff Sanders’ game story (here) from the Padres’ 1-0 victory over the Braves. That story also has a sentence or two about the offense, which effectively consisted of Manny Machado’s home run in the fourth inning.
Stammen was spot on regarding the syncing of the Padres’ struggles and those of their erstwhile No.1 starter.
The Padres entered last night having lost 17 of their 25 games since May 24. It was the worst record in the major leagues over that span. King started and allowed four runs in 3⅔ innings in the Padres’ May 24 loss to the Athletics.
He allowed at least three runs in his four starts between then and last night.
Last night, King didn’t walk off the mound ticked off for the first time in a month. He hopped off the mound after striking out Jorge Mateo to end the top of the seventh.
King is too much of a perfectionist to say he was pleased.
There is just no doubt the command of his sinker was better than it had been in, well, who knows how long. And the sweeper and changeup that betrayed him the last couple outings were back.
“I disagree,” King said. “I mean, I was 1-0, 2-0 to a lot of guys, was able to execute in those 2-0 hitter-advantage counts. You know me. I’m never going to be fully happy with an outing, so I’m probably overanalyzing it right now. But I’ll continue to grind and try to say that it was better the next start.”
As I broke down in yesterday’s newsletter, the starting rotation has been the Padres’ biggest issue. It has rung a louder alarm than the offense the past few weeks.
And King struggling was a big part of that. Kudos to Walker Buehler for being the team’s most consistent pitcher since mid-May. But King is the one with ace potential. With Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta sidelined by elbow issues, King is the only guy standing among the three pitchers expected to anchor the rotation.
“I know that, especially with the injuries we have in the starting rotation, there’s a lot more weight on us to carry it,” King said. “And Walker has been doing a great job, and I feel like a lot of us are very close to being really good. We’ve all been making good strides, even though it doesn’t look like it in the numbers. We have confidence building every start out there, and I think we’re all gonna hit our stride here soon.”
We’ll see. But what King did last night kept hope alive.
There is no chance the Padres can continue to hold ground in the wild-card race with their starting pitchers ranking 25th in the major leagues in ERA and innings pitched, as was the case going into last night.
It just doesn’t happen. No playoff team (excluding the covid-shortened 2020 season) since at least 2010 has had a rotation ranked that low and made the playoffs .
Mannyhandled
Machado was asked what he saw on his home run.
“Hanging slider,” he said.
Two words actually said a lot.
Because that is a pitch on which he should do what he did — line the ball 418 feet at 105 mph — more often than he has in 2026.
Manny Machado gets the @Padres on the board with a solo homer 💥 pic.twitter.com/M1MQTaUTgB
— MLB (@MLB) June 23, 2026
We have talked a lot about Machado not doing damage on pitches he should, focusing largely on fastballs.
But he is pretty good against sliders hung up in the strike zone. From 2020 to ‘25, he hit .362 with an .819 slugging percentage against sliders in the upper two-thirds of the zone.
He entered last night 1-for-14 (.071) with a home run on those pitches this season.
Lately, Machado has been hitting a lot of pitches the way he should.
A double in the eighth inning, on a cutter in off the plate, meant he had half the Padres’ hits last night and is batting .277 (13-for-47) with a .957 OPS in 12 games since June 9. He has three games with multiple extra-base hits in that span.
I wrote (here) near the start of his recent surge about the work he was doing to try to get his swing back and one of the causes of his struggles.
There are a lot of technical aspects to hitting. But an underappreciated aspect of hitters mired in slumps is that they eventually reach a point where they are trying too hard and they have to stop.
Machado, who is loath to acknowledge such a thing, essentially did so last night.
“It’s not thinking about the results, just thinking about staying committed to the work that I’m doing, staying true to it and trust in the process,” he said of what the difference is when he hits as he has recently. “Staying within yourself, staying within what you need to do with it. … It goes back to trusting the process, trusting that you’re putting yourself in the right positions, trusting that you’ve done everything that you can and you’re in a good position to fire and trusting that.
“When you do that, you’re able to connect. When you’re not trusting and you’re trying to look for the results, you probably just pull that (pitch foul) or (are) a little bit more anxious on it.”
Machado has raised his batting average 19 points (to .185) over the past 12 games. He is now out of the bottom spot among MLB’s qualifying hitters, as the Cubs’ Dansby Swanson is batting .183.
Everywhere man
A 1-0 victory is not just the doing of dominant arms or missed opportunities by batters.
“Whenever you throw a shutout, there’s always a few plays that have to be made,” Stammen said.
Last night, those plays were made by Jackson Merrill.
The man who has reached over the wall to take away five home runs this season did not add to that total, but he made a play in front of the wall to deprive Michael Harris II of an extra-base hit that was arguably almost as spectacular as any of his thefts.
“Just how far he had to go for it and getting to that corner with the wall and knowing exactly where he was and making a reaching catch,” Stammen said of the degree of difficulty.
Merrill ran 93 feet at a top speed of 28.9 feet per second, leaped and came up with the drive by Harris, preventing a one-out double in the fourth inning.
Jackson Merrill makes a sensational catch 👏 pic.twitter.com/jO3atsko5q
— MLB (@MLB) June 23, 2026
If it seems like Merrill has taken his play to another level in his third season as a center fielder, it is because that is a focus.
“I just want to be as aggressive as possible on defense,” he said last night. “I don’t want to hold back anymore and pull up on balls. If I don’t catch it, I don’t catch it. … I’m just trying to be ready. Sometimes it can be tough out there. Early in the season, having bad at-bats all the time and then you go out there and play defense. Trying to stay locked in all the time on every side of the ball is just huge for me.”
Merrill tied his season high with six putouts, including one he made look routine at the end of a 90-foot sprint to end the fifth and a sliding grab as he went to a knee for the second out in the seventh with a man on first base already.
About 71% of the Earth is covered by water. The other 29% is covered by Jackson Merrill#padres #forthefaithful pic.twitter.com/yZYfT3hZAl
— Padres Highlights (@FriarHighlights) June 23, 2026
King was appreciative.
“I hugged him like six times today,” King said. “That was impressive out there.”
More important Morejón
Adrian Morejón has become the Padres’ primary setup man, which would mean he worked mostly in the eighth inning if not for his main role.
That is being the reliever the Padres deploy to take down the top of the order in crucial situations later in games, which often means he works in the sixth or seventh.
Last night, his roles converged.
Morejón took over for King at the start of the eighth inning and struck out Braves leadoff hitter Mauricio Dubón and No.2 batter Drake Baldwin before getting Matt Olson on a soft grounder to first base.
He wrapped up the whole thing in 12 pitches.
And he did it on one day’s rest after working two innings on Saturday.
“Today, I was just thinking about throwing strikes,” Morejón said. “I was not thinking about strikeouts. I know I had two, but I tried to throw strikes.”
While he loves the strikeouts and has fanned seven of the past 11 batters he has faced, he was most proud last night of falling behind 2-0 to Olson and then getting him to put the next pitch, a 100 mph sinker in play.
“I have a lot of confidence in my pitches,” Morejón said. “The last month, I feel more confidence.”
It was a wild start to the season for the 27-year-old left-hander.
Through his first 17 appearances, he had a 5.66 ERA despite his fairly routinely firing off 101 mph sinkers and warped changeups and sliders. To that point, his 131 Stuff+ rating was second highest among qualifying relievers, five spots ahead of Miller (122). (Stuff+ is a metric that purports to measure the “nastiness” of a pitcher’s arsenal based largely on velocity, spin and movement.)
Morejón’s 2.72 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) and .357 batting average on balls in play to that point suggested that he was overwhelmingly unlucky.
He has held opponents scoreless in 18 of his past 19 appearances and has a 1.40 ERA, 1.29 FIP and 31.4% strikeout rate in that span.
Jason Adam was the primary top-of-the-order reliever last year. The Padres used Morejón more often to get portions of the lineup heavy in left-handers.
It does work nicely for the Padres that teams’ better left-handed batters generally are at the top of the order.
It was around the beginning of May that a shift in how Adam and Morejón, both All-Stars last season, were used.
Last night was the 15th time in his past 17 appearances that Morejón faced at least two of the opponents’ top four hitters. He did not do so this past Wednesday when closing out a win at St. Louis or May 23 when he faced the Athletics’ 8-9-1 batters in the seventh inning.
Morejón faced eight batters Sunday in Texas, just two of whom hit from the left side. He allowed a single in the eighth inning, hit a batter in the ninth, struck out five and got a pop-up.
“I feel ready right now to face any hitter in the league,” Morejón said. “I never disrespect any hitter, but I feel right now I can pitch to whoever.”
Their specialty
The Padres are the only team in the major leagues to have three 1-0 victories this season.
Last night was their fourth victory in which they had four or fewer hits, tied for second most in the majors.
They would certainly like to hit more and score more. But they appear to be leaning into who they are.
“If we can get one more run than the other team,” Machado said, “I think it’s kind of locked down for us with the bullpen that we have.”
The Padres improved to 25-3 when leading after the sixth inning and 26-9 when scoring first this season.
Stammen, who was part of the Padres’ bullpen from 2017 through ‘22, spoke about the team’s propensity for winning close games.
“It feels like these are normal Padre wins — low-scoring, one- or two-run games and find a way to close it out with an elite closer,” Stammen said. “That’s Padres’ history — having an elite closer. And we’ve got one right now.”
The Padres’ .670 winning percentage (75-37) in games decided by one run at Petco Park is the fifth highest in one-run games at home since 2021.
Tidbits
The Padres had just four hits last night, but they walked seven times. They have reached base at least 11 times in 12 of their past 14 games after doing so twice in their previous 11 games.
Last night was the first time since June 8 and 9 that closer Mason Miller worked twice in a three-day span. It was just the third time he has done so since the start of May. If there is an upside to the Padres not having had many save opportunities the past six weeks, it is that Miller went from an 81-game pace at the end of April, which was clearly unsustainable, to a 65-game pace.
Fernando Tatis Jr. extended his on-base streak to 16 games with a single in the first inning. He finished 1-for-4 and is batting .333 (22-for-66) with a .375 on-base percentage during the streak, which is the longest by a Padres player this season.
Tatis’ single was lined to left field at 108 mph. It was the 51st ball he has put in play at 105 mph or harder this season, tied for sixth most in MLB. His 13 balls in play at 105 mph or harder over his past 14 games are tied with the Athletics’ Nick Kurtz for most in the majors in that span (since June 7).
Samad Taylor’s hitting streak ended at 12 games with his 0-for-3 night. Jeff Sanders’ game preview (here) explained the idea behind batting Taylor ninth.
Xander Bogaerts walked three times last night and has reached base in 12 of his past 22 plate appearances. He had reached base 11 times in his previous 44 plate appearances.
Rodolfo Durán, who has become the Padres’ everyday catcher, went 0-for-3 last night and left a runner in scoring position every time. Durán has one hit in his past 21 at-bats and is batting .127 (7-for-55) on the season. There is a hint of clarity as to how much longer he will be in the role. Catcher Freddy Fermin (concussion) is expected back by the end of the week. Also, Luis Campusano (toe fracture) could start a rehab assignment as soon as this weekend.
Miguel Andujar struck out as a pinch-hitter last night. He was activated off the injured list Sunday and grounded into his team-leading seventh double play as a pinch-hitter in that game. Andujar was batting .299 average with an .846 OPS on May 19. He is 9-for-57 with one double and three walks since. He is batting .261, and his OPS fell below .700 (.699) last night.
Machado just can’t quit ABS. He said before the season he would not challenge pitches. Then he did. Then he swore it off after being wrong three times in a row in April. But he keeps challenging strike calls, and it is not going well. He missed this one yesterday to drop to 5-for-12 on challenges this season:
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.