Good morning from Atlanta,
The Padres are not even where they are without Ty France and Gavin Sheets having carried them for portions of this season.
They will not get where they want to go without Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. giving them more of a lift the rest of the season.
My game story (here) from last night’s 8-3 victory over the Braves talked about the relatively rare synergy between the pitching and hitting.
Last night was a fortuitous time to get it together, coming as it did a day after they so egregiously did not and with them trying to remain relevant in the National League playoff chase.
It should not be overlooked that France had another clutch hit last night — a two-out RBI single in the first inning that made sure the Padres did not blow a prime scoring opportunity yet again.
France extended his hitting streak to nine games, is has an 1.162 OPS over the past month and has arguably been the team’s MVP to date.
But this team was built around a core. Its ultimate success will correlate to the core’s success. And the members of that core have not been living up to their end of the deals they signed.
They know it.
“Obviously, if we were all freaking doing well, we wouldn’t be in this position,” Machado said last night. “It’d be a different story. So, absolutely, at the end of the day, we all need to perform at the highest level, and that’s what they pay us for. That’s why we’re here.”
Last night was the first game this season in which Machado, Merrill and Tatis all homered.
It was just the 11th time they drove in more than three runs between them and the third time they all had multiple hits.
“It’s huge,” Tatis said. “That’s why we got paid. That’s what we’re here for, and that’s what everybody expects from us, and that’s what we should be doing. That’s what we’re here for. Simple as that.”
Machado homered twice last night. Tatis and Merrill homered once apiece. Tatis also had an RBI double and a single. Merrill singled and walked.
The trio has been far from terrific in 2026.
Machado is on pace to hit 35 homers, more than he has had in any season since he hit 37 in 2018. But his .204 batting average is the highest it has been since he was batting .207 on May 6, and his .727 OPS is nearly 100 points below the career .824 mark he brought into the season.
Tatis’ .286 batting average ranks 13th in the National League, but his eight home runs are nine fewer than he has ever had this far into a season.
Merrill is one of five MLB players with at least 13 homers and at least 20 steals this season, but his .222 average and .646 OPS are both in the bottom 20 among qualifying players.
But things are looking up.
Machado has homered the past two nights and his .973 OPS over his past 35 games ranks 15th in the major leagues in that span (since June 9).
Tatis, whose .329 batting average in 50 games since May 24 is seventh highest in the majors, has homered in three of the past four games.
Merrill has three home runs in the past four games.
This is without question the best stretch they have put together together. And that is without question the best thing that could happen to the Padres outside them starting to get quality starts night after night.
“You get some of your best hitters going at the same time, it’s pretty hard to beat you,” Merrill said. “So, you know, it’s a pretty obvious key to our success.”
How it’s shaping up
Craig Stammen does not deny he is biased toward the players he presently has in the clubhouse.
“For me, as the manager, it’s hard to talk about getting rid of somebody and adding someone else,” he said yesterday afternoon. “The guys that we have here, I think are fully capable of going on a hot streak and winning us a bunch of games and taking us through the playoffs. A.J. (Preller), that’s his decision, the front office’s decision, to see where we can get better and how those pieces get moved around.”
Stammen does know how important this trip and next week’s six-game homestand are, as Preller and ownership decide what to do at the trade deadline. Stammen, though, has forcefully asserted multiple times in the past few days how much of the season remains after Aug. 3.
“There are going to be 50 games past the trade deadline that are equally as important as these 10 games (before the deadline),” he said. “And so we’re focused on finishing the season well, not just to the trade deadline.”
While the Padres’ preference remains to supplement their rotation and bullpen — and possibly their outfield — at the deadline, various factors could prevent them from making a huge splash even if they are buyers.
There are several teams looking to buy and relatively few sellers. The Padres might not have the prospects other teams want. Adding payroll is something they are willing to do only to a point.
Certainly, Stammen knows the Padres need more pitching in order to even dream about playing in October.
But that is not something he is projecting.
“This is a team that we’ve believed in all year,” he said. “So if we stand pat, or whatever you’d say, and believe in this team and go forward with it, we’ve got 60 games to prove that we’re the team that we thought we were at the beginning of the season. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I believe in this team. I know what we’re capable of. We’re so close. Like right now, it seems like every loss makes us feel so far away, but we’re really not that far away. You know, we get on a little bit of a hot streak, we’re going to be in good shape.”
The fact is, Preller went into this season the same way he went into 2024 and ‘25 — knowing his team’s flaws and potential shortcomings and intending to address them at the trade deadline.
There is really not much debate about whether a Padres team without an infusion of starting pitching and another higher-leverage reliever would be able to make a serious playoff run.
But what has happened in the early days of the second half suggest this might be one of those seasons in which no one forcefully grasps the final wild-card spot and the sixth seed ends up being simply the last team standing.
The Marlins, who began the second half in possession of that No.6 seed, lost their eighth straight game last night. The Cardinals, who took over the sixth spot on Friday, last night lost their fourth in a row.
Yesterday’s rainout in New York might be all that saved the Pirates, who are tied with the Diamondbacks for that final playoff spot after Arizona’s win last night.
The Padres have gained 1½ games in the standings since the All-Star break despite going 2-3 in that time. They do remain the sixth team of the six that are fighting for that final spot.
It lined up
Stammen made significant changes in the lineup yesterday.
What a genius!
“Well, it worked out today,” he said with a laugh. “We have good hitters. You know, it’s not the lineup where they’re hitting. When they commit to a plan and take good at-bats and the pitcher doesn’t pitch his game, you can put up a game like that, which was a lot of good offense.”
The Padres jumped on Braves starter Reynaldo Lopez and kept adding on. They scored in four of the first six innings. (That is something they did just four times in their first 91 games but have now done four times in their past 10 games.) Their six runs in last night’s first six innings were 3.6 runs more than the MLB-worst average they brought into the game.
“The lineup is such a crazy thing,” Stammen said. “You have these ideas and then it doesn’t work out, and you’re like, ‘Well, it must be the lineup. We’ve got to change it around.’ But if the guys are feeling good at the plate and they’re swinging at good pitches, it doesn’t matter where they hit; they’re going to find success.”
Whatever. The jumbled concoction produced 13 hits and a total of 18 baserunners. It was just the eighth time this season they have had at least 13 hits and the seventh time they have had at least 18 baserunners.
You can read in my pregame notebook (here) about the biggest of the multiple machinations — moving Xander Bogaerts lower in the lineup than he had been 11 years as the latest attempt to get him out of a skid that had seen him hit .183 with a .528 OPS over his previous 59 games.
Bogaerts was 1-for-4 with a double last night. He also had a 407-foot drive to center field tracked down and caught over the shoulder at the wall by Michael Harris II.
“He’s going to get out of this eventually,” Stammen said. “If he’s hitting in the eight hole for us and he’s hot, that means our lineup is in a pretty darn good spot.”
Michael Harris II races back to make a nice catch at the wall 👏 pic.twitter.com/4CNP1hHxpC
— MLB (@MLB) July 21, 2026
Big fly
Tatis’ home run in the eighth inning was the longest of his career, the longest by a Padres player since 2021 and the longest in the major leagues this season.
Tatis sent a curveball from TJ Ritchie about 20 rows up beyond left-center field, a projected 474 feet from home plate. That was three feet longer than his previous career best, hit June 16, 2021, at Coors Field.
“Yeah, this one felt better,” Tatis said. “The other one was more Colorado air. But this one was like, yeah.”
There are no-doubters, and then there are no-doubters. pic.twitter.com/jTjerdX6Uq
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) July 22, 2026
Said Machado: “I thought it was gonna go up in the concourse.”
While Tatis was at the plate, Merrill and some teammates were in the dugout recalling the 467-foot home run Ronald Acuña Jr. hit off Padres pitcher Nick Pivetta in April 2025.
“That was one of the farthest balls I’ve ever seen hit,” Merrill recalled saying of Acuña’s blast, which was also to left-center field. “And literally the next pitch, (Tatis) hit it. I was like, ‘Not like that though.’ That was pretty impressive.”
Just four balls had ever been hit further at Truist Park, which opened in 2017.
Just five longer home runs had ever been hit by some in a Padres uniform.
Tatis holds dearer a homer he didn’t launch quite as far – the 467-foot shot off Tony Gonsolin on Sept. 30, 2021 that hit off the top of the left field pavilion and bounced out of Dodger Stadium.
“Dodger Stadium was more special because hitting it over a stadium is just crazy,” Tatis said. “But yeah, those two will stick up there.”
Getting up there
Machado’s 22 home runs are his third most through 101 team games behind the 24 he had at this point in 2018 and the 25 he had in 2019. (He finished with 37 homers in ‘18 and 32 in ‘19.)
He is on pace for 35 this year, and if he even reaches 31 he will have also achieved a significant career milestone.
He is nine home runs away from becoming just the 60th player in MLB history with 400.
Last night, Machado passed Graig Nettles and now has the seventh-most home runs by a third baseman.
Walker, no more
Walker Buehler still maintains his No.1 starter mentality even though it has been several years since he was one.
A hallmark of the best starting pitchers is being able to figure out a way to work through a game that starts poorly.
Buehler’s night began with him being unable to command much of anything, as he walked four batters in the first two innings, including two batters who came around to score on Jim Jarvis’ triple in the second inning.
To that point, Buehler had thrown 26 strikes and 24 balls.
He threw 20 strikes among the 29 pitches he took to get through the next three innings and ended up finishing 5⅔ innings having allowed one more hit and one more walk.
“Kind of aimed a little bit more middle,” Buehler said. “I mean, you walk enough guys enough times, sometimes you’d rather just get hit. So I think that was kind of the idea, to just kind of start finding the edges. And good things happen when we do that.
“I’ve given up a lot of runs early in games. … I kind of pride myself on, ‘OK, I can at least get through five innings in this game.’ Obviously, this year that hasn’t really been the case. But I’ve done that in my career, and that’s something that I think is important to do what we do.”
Last night was actually the 10th time Buehler has completed at least five innings while allowing two or fewer runs. That is more than any Padres starter except Michael King, who has 12 such starts. The Padres are 8-2 in Buehler’s 10 starts meeting those thresholds.
While Buehler resisted in recent days entirely acknowledging he was fatigued, he didn’t deny the nine days between starts helped.
Buehler allowed four runs in two innings in his start on July 10, running his total to 20 runs in 11 innings over a three-start span. The Padres changed up the rotation’s order coming out of the break to maximize his rest.
“I think anytime you skip a start,” Buehler said, “you’re going to feel a little fresher.”
Tidbits
The Padres put 10 balls in play at 100 mph or greater last night. It was the fifth straight game they had at least nine balls with an exit velocity of 100 mph or greater. That had happened once in their previous 12 games.
Tatis put three balls in play with an exit velocity of 106 mph or greater. He has hit 74 balls in play at 105 mph or harder this season, tied with the Nationals’ James Wood for second in the major leagues behind the Rays’ Junior Caminero’s 83.
Tatis’ homer was his first this season with anyone on base.
Luis Rengifo’s single in the second inning gave him a hit in four consecutive plate appearances for the first time in his eight-year MLB career. Rengifo is 6-for-10 with two walks over the past three games.
Buehler successfully challenged a ball call last night and is 2-for-3 on challenges this season. He and Michael King (1-for-1) are the only two Padres pitchers to challenge pitches this season.
Last night was the 27th time the Padres have won a game in which they trailed. That is tied with the Cubs for the fifth most comeback victories.
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.