Good morning,
This version of the Padres will be tough to beat.
And what has been happening for a while seems to show it can be counted on that some semblance of this version will show up — half of it (the pitching) almost all the time and the other half (the offense) half the time.
My game story (here) from last night’s 6-2 victory over the Twins focused on the consistency of the starting pitching and the kinda sorta consistent offense.
Randy Vásquez was arguably as good as he has ever been in giving the Padres their fifth consecutive quality start.
And it has actually been better than that.
Last night was the fifth straight game — a full turn through the rotation — that a Padres starter has gone at least six innings and allowed no more than two runs. It is the first time that has happened since a string of six such starts from July 26 to Aug. 1, 2022.
Go back two turns through the rotation, and last night was the eighth quality start in 10 games.
The 2026 Padres never had more than two quality starts in a row before this stretch. And they never had more than three quality starts in two turns through the rotation. There were two separate stretches this season in which they went twice through the rotation without a single quality start.
I wrote (here) about the change and the significance of the change in my off-day story Thursday.
And I will keep hammering this home as long as the Padres starting pitching keeps doing this.
Because this is what makes the Padres an entirely different team than they were most of the season. It makes them formidable.
Their offense — as good as it has been — is something of a yo-yo still.
Last night ran to 12 the streak of games in which the Padres have scored four or fewer runs one night and at least five runs the next night.
On the “under” nights, they have totaled 40 runs. On the “over nights” they have scored a total of 14 runs.
The moral of this story is you just can’t count on scoring five runs every night.
“I think it’s part of offense,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “It’s just not consistent like defense and pitching is, and you have these ebbs and flows through the season where we were super cold. You try to avoid those as much as you can. And then we were super hot, and you try to ride that as long as you can. And now we’re kind of probably a little bit in the middle. You know, where we have some really good games where we see the offense of when we were hot, and then we’ve had a couple games where you see the offense of what it looked like in May. And that’s just part of the season.”
Doing the job
Vásquez began his night by retiring nine consecutive batters. He allowed two hits and hit a batter in the fourth inning and then retired the final 10 batters he faced.
That was six perfect innings, three before and three after a two-run fourth.
“Kind of a man on a mission, proving that he deserves to be in the starting rotation,” Stammen said.
Vásquez has consistently declined to concur with that sentiment publicly.
“Wherever the team really needs me,” he said through interpreter Jorge Merlos. “As I’ve said before, it doesn’t matter if I’m a reliever or I’m a starter, I’m going out there and doing my best that I can. It doesn’t give me any frustrating moments or anything like that. I know that I’m just going to go out there and pitch and do my job as best as I can.”
Vásquez’s teammates have agreed with Stammen’s assessment that he is out to prove something. He may very well be.
But his outlook is the right one to have, because he is likely going to end up back in the bullpen almost no matter what he does over his next couple starts.
Eventually
Joe Musgrove traveled to El Paso on Wednesday for what was to be a rehab start last night, but he experienced tightness in his back that he attributed to work in the weight room and returned to San Diego.
He is past that issue now. He played catch yesterday and is scheduled to throw a bullpen today. He likely will make his next rehab start Tuesday, as there are no Monday games in the minor leagues.
No final determination has been made, but it is looking like the Padres will have Musgrove do two more rehab starts and, if all goes to plan, activate him when rosters expand in September.
That will keep the Padres from having to make room on the roster with a move.
But they will have to jettison someone to the bullpen, as they plan to go with a five-man rotation.
Almost certainly, that will be Vásquez.
That might be tough to do if he throws another gem his next couple times out. But the fact is, he is far more suited to pitch in relief than Walker Buehler.
Vásquez’s ability to bounce back quickly after pitching is a big part of what makes him the ideal pitcher to move to the bullpen.
“He can pitch every day,” pitching coach Ruben Niebla said. “We know that he’s capable of doing that.”
It is the lot of the No.4 or No.5 starter to sometimes be, in essence, jerked around.
Vásquez was optioned four times in 2024 in between his 24 games (19 starts) for the Padres. In ‘25, he had a 3.65 ERA in 21 starts and was optioned after the Padres traded for JP Sears. He has pitched out of the bullpen in half of his past 10 appearances, and after what seems will be a start Wednesday against the Pirates and probably one more in Cincinnati will likely be headed back to a relief role.
“The hardest job of anybody in the rotation right now is him coming in at any time in the game, whether starting the game or coming in, middle of the game or after an opener or whatever,” Stammen said. “Mentally, you’ve got to be very strong. You’ve got to believe in yourself and then be committed to when you go out there that there’s no excuses from when I’m in the game. I’m just in the game, and it’s my job to get outs. And Randy has done a great job of embracing that and doing a really good job of being successful doing it.”
Ty that binds
Ty France’s two-run homer in the first inning started the Padres’ scoring last night, and his sacrifice fly in the fifth inning finished the Padres’ scoring.
It has for big parts of the season seemed the Padres’ offense started and finished with France.
“He’s the backbone of our squad,” Jackson Merrill said. “He has been consistent all year. He’s in a different zone.”
Last night was France’s team-leading eighth game with at least three RBIs, two more than Manny Machado and twice as many as Fernando Tatis Jr.
And France has started 39 fewer games than Machado and 40 fewer than Tatis.
France signed a minor-league deal with the Padres in February that guaranteed him $1.3 million if he made the major league roster. He did make the roster, but he was seen as a role player early on.
He started just two of the Padres’ first 15 games and then was a semi-regular through June. He has started 30 of the Padres’ past 31 games, all of those batting cleanup.
“I don’t think anybody would have guessed that coming out of spring training,” Stammen said. “We knew Ty is a great baseball player. He’s been in the big leagues for a really long time. We knew he’s a solid player. He’s going to play great first base and give you really good at-bats. Did we see him hitting four-hole and leading our offense the way he is? I don’t think so.”
While France does not have enough plate appearances to be a qualifier, he ranks sixth among all first baseman with an .875 OPS and fourth with a .293 batting average.
Baseball-reference calculates his WAR at 3.3, tops on the Padres. FanGraphs has his WAR at 2.6, second to Tatis (3.6). France’s 18 home are two off the career high he set in 2022, his All-Star season in Seattle.
“I’m just feeling like the old Ty again, which is nice,” France said. “There was a rough two-year stretch where I kind of lost it a little bit, and it’s nice feeling like the player I know I can be.”
We have discussed it here before, but it is worth revisiting that France made a shift back to his old ready position, wherein his hands start higher and he is more direct to the ball. He credits the hitting coaches in Toronto, where he was traded at the deadline last year, with alerting him to that mechanical tweak.
His .985 OPS since June 19 is fourth highest in the major leagues. He has gone more than two games without a hit just once in that span (49 games).
“I’ve got to give Steven (Souza) and the hitting (coaches) a lot of credit,” France said. “When things are going bad, they don’t let it fester. They just say, ‘Hey, this is what we see. This is what you’re doing. Let’s get back to this,’ or ‘Let’s try this.’ So you have to give them a lot of the credit.”
A keeper
Stammen said France has possibly made as big an impact off the field as on it.
“He’s been around a lot of different clubhouses,” Stammen said. “He was here when he was a young player, and he’s fitting in with the guys that he’s played with in the past. And I think he’s taken things from the other places that he’s been — Toronto last year, Minnesota last year, Cincinnati, Seattle — and brought some of that fun and that energy and that leadership into our clubhouse, and I think his influence on those guys is pretty amazing.”
Said Merrill: “I think he belongs here.”
All good
Merrill struck out his first three times up last night and lined out to right field in his final at-bat.
He is 2-for-25 with two walks and 13 strikeouts over his past seven games. This follows a stretch of 24 games in which he led the major leagues with an 1.130 OPS.
Merrill has again created extra movement at the start of his swing and gotten “big.”
He was visibly yet briefly frustrated following a couple of the strikeouts last night. But after the game, Merrill bristled at the suggestion things are not going great.
“I’ve had like four bad games,” he said. “I don’t think things aren’t going great. I’m just striking out more than usual. But for like 30 games before that, I was hitting the f—ck out of the ball. So I don’t think four bad games can put me in a rut. I feel good. I might not be showing it, obviously. But I feel good. So I’m going to stay confident in myself and have fun playing baseball.”
That much was clear. Merrill continued to get excellent jumps on balls he had to run down in the outfield. And when the final out was made and he had participated in the postgame hug with left fielder Austin Hays and right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., Merrill ran in from outfield with a gigantic smile on his face.
“We won the game,” he said. “I don’t give a f—k if I struck out three times, four times, five times. We won the game.”
Tidbits
Mason Miller struck out all three batters he faced in the ninth inning last night. It was the eighth time he has done that this season, which is twice as many as any other reliever. It is fourth among all pitchers, behind only starters Jacob Misiorowski (11), Paul Skenes (10) and Jesus Luzardo (9). All of those pitchers have thrown at least 86 more innings than Miller.
Bradgley Rodriguez worked last night’s eighth inning and ran his scoreless streak to 9⅓ innings over his past seven appearances.
Jake Cronenworth walked twice last night and has a .357 on-base percentage during a 10-game on-base streak.
Manny Machado was 2-for-4 last night and is batting .306 (11-for-36) with one home run over the past nine games. That comes after a stretch of 13 games in which he hit .167 (8-for-48) with two doubles.
The Padres’ four-run fifth inning was their first inning that big since Aug. 11. Their seven games without an inning in which they scored at least four runs was their third-longest stretch of the season.
Tatis was 3-for-4 with a double last night. His 12 games with at least three hits are tied for fifth most in the major leagues this season.
Tatis’ 27 doubles are tied for third most in his career and is six off his career high of 33 set in 2023.
France was 1-for-1 with two walks and the sacrifice fly last night. He is batting .393 (12-for-28) with a .980 OPS against his four former teams this season.
Jeff Sanders’ “Clubhouse Chatter” (here) this week was about what players do on the rare off days at home during the season.
Sanders’ game preview (here) from yesterday afternoon featured a look at Kyle Hart’s improvement against right-handed batters with a breakdown of how he is pitching differently this season.
The Padres’ 19-7 record since July 24 is best in the major leagues. They have gained five games in the standings in that span.
No newsletter tomorrow. I will cover today’s game and then get home and get to sleep.
Someone I know started first grade last week, and I want to be up tomorrow morning and hear about it before I leave for the ballpark. If I stay up late doing the newsletter, that won’t happen.
As usual, we will have the game coverage on our Padres page. The next Padres Daily will arrive in your inbox Monday morning.
Talk to you then.