Good morning,
After a loss that shined a light on a potential weakness and a loss that served as a chink in the armor of a perceived strength, the Padres got a victory and an encouraging sign regarding the depth of their starting rotation last night.
In the season’s third game, Randy Vásquez pitched like the Padres believe he can regularly.
You can read in my game story (here) about the basics of Vásquez’s night and the Padres’ 3-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers.
“We needed a big start out of him after the first two games,” manager Craig Stammen said.
Nick Pivetta had gone three innings in Thursday’s season opener, forcing the Padres to use four relievers. Two of those relievers had to work again Friday after Jeremiah Estrada blew a lead in the eighth inning.
So Vásquez working six scoreless innings was monumental both for the moment and for what it might mean for Vásquez and the Padres down the road.
It was one start. But it was also a continuation.
The 27-year-old right-hander, who last night allowed two hits, walked three and struck out eight, has four quality starts and a 1.98 ERA in five starts going back to Sept. 6.
That was shortly after Vásquez hit 96 mph for the first time in 2025. In his Sept. 18 start, he hit 97. And in a relief appearance on Sept. 28, he threw two pitches at 98.
He came into spring training throwing hard and continued to do so last night. He reached 97.8 mph with a first-inning sinker and averaged 95.5 mph with that pitch (up from 93.1 last season) and 95 mph with his four-seam fastball (up from 93.5).
In his past five starts, Vásquez has a 24.5% strikeout rate. That is nearly double his 13% rate in 42 starts from the start of the 2024 season through August.
That 13% was the lowest strikeout rate of any pitcher who had thrown at least 150 innings in that span.
“Not very much,” Vásquez said last night (through interpreter Pedro Gutierrez) when asked if he ever envisioned himself being a strikeout pitcher. “But it’s something I’ve been focusing on, particularly when I have somebody with two strikes. In my mind it’s 0-0, so just try to execute with that one last pitch.”
In 2024 and the early part of last season, Vásquez often got in trouble when he went for the strikeout. He did not have the velocity to make batters miss, and they knew he wasn’t coming in the strike zone at that point in at-bats.
But it turns out, Vásquez is a little bit Darvish-ish.
That is not entirely a coincidence, in that Yu Darvish has been a mentor.
“He saw that I was interested in trying to model myself a little bit (after) him,” Vásquez said. “… He’s an incredible person. He’s helped me out a lot ever since I came here to San Diego.”
Vásquez doesn’t quite have Darvish’s repertoire. But he has four other pitches he threw at least six times last night, including a cutter that got eight misses on 21 swings and a curveball that got five misses on 16 swings. His stuff has always been good. He just has not had the ability to put many pitches past people without the threat of velocity and without the real conviction his pitches could be effective in the strike zone.
“We saw from Randy a little bit of like — not that he didn’t trust his pitches but just kind of pitching around the zone,” Stammen said. “And I think what we’re seeing now is him attacking hitters, not being afraid and knowing that he’s got good stuff.”
And some extra heat.
His last seven strikeouts last night were finished by one of his fastballs (one sinker, six four-seamers). Setting hitters up with different pitches and then using the heat to get the third strike is a very Darvish pattern.
“It helps a lot,” a smiling Vásquez said of the increased velocity.
Where did the velocity increase come from?
“Better physical shape and the work in the gym,” Vásquez said..
I wrote (here) after Vásquez’s first start this spring about how that process transpired.
Hart too
Left-hander Kyle Hart replaced Vásquez to start the seventh inning and retired all six batters he faced to provide a bridge to closer Mason Miller.
Adrian Morejón worked two innings on Friday. David Morgan and Wandy Peralta were not available after pitching the previous two games. Ron Marinaccio threw 45 pitches over two innings on Thursday. Estrada was coming off a tough night.
“That’s part of being a good bullpen is being able to pick each other up,” Hart said. “Keeping Mo out of there and keeping Jeremiah out of there — just because we know those guys are going to carry the load, any time you can keep those guys out of a game like that … it matters.”
Hart had been warming up in the first inning of the season opener before Pivetta was able to close out that inning on 33 pitches. With the Padres down six runs by the time Pivetta’s day was finished, the decision was made to save Hart for a time such as last night.
“That was amazing, to be able to pitch the seventh and eighth,” Stammen said. “… We kind of held him for an opportunity where he could get through the lineup maybe one full time with all their lefties. And he did that today, and he made it look easy.”
Hart threw just 23 pitches. He struck out three batters, including two right-handers.
Said Stammen: “To have a guy like that, who you could say started the season as your seventh, eighth guy in the bullpen, to be able to come in and do things like that, that’s pretty great.”
Sticking with it
The Padres saw just 128 pitches on Thursday and 127 on Friday.
The low pitch totals — almost 20 pitches below their average in 2025 — had a lot to do with the Padres’ gameplan against Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez. The two left-handers — and Skubal especially — strike out a lot of batters. The idea was to not fall behind in counts, because that usually does not end well. So the Padres came out swinging.
“With Skubal, you’re either gonna beat him in 65 (pitches) or he’s gonna beat you in 90,” Padres hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. said last night. “He is who he is. He’s really good.”
Last night’s flow was more like what the Padres expect to look like at the plate. They saw 155 pitches from Jack Flaherty and three relief pitchers.
“You could have the best approach in the world against those first two guys, it probably isn’t going to work out more often than not just based on their career and what they’ve done,” Jake Cronenworth said. “But I think all of us sticking with it and going forth with the plan and just staying to it, we saw a lot of good at-bats today.”
Among those was Cronenworth’s 11-pitch effort against Connor Seabold in the sixth inning. Cronenworth lined out at the end of that battle.
Fernando Tatis Jr. had the at-bat of the night, both for what he did and when he did it.
Tatis came to the plate with two outs and two men on in the third inning and fell behind 1-2 before Flaherty sent a 93 mph fastball up and in near Tatis’ arms. Tatis’ helmet flew off as he moved out of the way.
After Tatis fouled off the next pitch, Flaherty did what a lot of pitchers will do to Tatis and tempted him with a slider that broke low and outside the zone.
Tatis reached out to poke the ball into right field and drive in the game’s first run.
“Nobody wants to stay in there after you just got your tower buzzed,” Souza said. “So for him to stay in there, not try and pull anything off but to try and just take his knock, that’s who he is. That’s why he’s one of the best in the game, the ability to do that in a big moment.”
The Padres had just seven hits last night, but they put 11 balls in play at 95 mph or harder. They hit 12 that hard on Thursday, including six against Skubal, and eight on Friday, all against Valdez.
Before last night’s game, the message to the players was to stay the course — that they had done what they were supposed to against two excellent starters and a good bullpen. The results would follow, coaches assured them.
After the game, Souza said, “I think if we do this and gameplan and spit on the pitches we need to to get the ones we want, these guys are so talented, we’re gonna be all right over 162.”
It went right
Tatis was batting second last night, down one spot from where he was against the two left-handed starters the Padres faced the previous two nights.
Flaherty is right-handed. So, as expected following his strong spring, the left-handed-hitting Cronenworth was the Padres’ lead-off batter for the first time since May 30, 2023.
He was 1-for-3 with a walk and scored twice.
“It’s fun,” Cronenworth said of leading off. “I enjoy it. Whether it’s setting the tempo in the beginning of the game or having kind of like the at-bat I had there in the (sixth), I think that’s kind of what I provide in that spot.”
Stammen said Cronenworth will continue to be atop the order “pretty often” against righties and that it will probably be Tatis against lefties.
Automatic
Miller extended his scoreless streak to 22⅔ innings and his hitless streak to 11 innings while earning his first save of the season.
The big right-hander, who struck out two and walked one in the ninth inning, hit 102.5 mph on two fastballs during his two-out walk to Spencer Torkelson before ending the game with three sliders in a three-pitch strikeout of Kevin McGonigle.
Miller’s scoreless stretch is the longest active streak in the major leagues and dates to Aug. 6, his third appearance for the Padres after being acquired at the trade deadline.
In 10 games since Miller allowed his last hit on Sept. 6, opponents are 0-for-30 with five walks and 23 strikeouts against him.
If his two postseason appearances and four appearances in the World Baseball Classic are included, opponents are 0-for-53 with seven walks and 41 strikeouts over Miller’s last 16 games. He also hit a batter in that span.
Here is what Miller has done in 23 regular season games for the Padres since being acquired at the trade deadline:
Learning the ABS
There were some pretty dramatic ABS moments and some that could have been last night.
Cronenworth’s long at-bat was extended when he won a challenge on what was initially called strike three on the at-bat’s ninth pitch.
Miller had a called third strike confirmed after a challenge for the first out in the ninth, and his second strike to McGonigle was overturned on a challenge by catcher Freddy Fermin.
Conversely, the Tigers hitters did not challenge two strike calls early in the game that looked as though they would have been overturned.
One was a called third strike on a full-count pitch to end the first inning. Had Torkelson tapped his helmet, Vásquez might have instead faced bases loaded with McGonigle coming up.
Padres catchers are 3-for-4 on challenges with the only miss coming by one-tenth of an inch on a call Luis Campusano challenged in the ninth inning Friday. Padres batters are 1-for-2.
“We’ve done a lot better since the regular season started than what we were doing in spring training,” Stammen said. “Part of that is the guys locking in and understanding the parameters that we put in front of us for the ABS and our strategy with it.”
Almost
Nick Castellanos got his first hit with the Padres, a single in last night’s sixth inning.
In his previous at-bat, he sent a ball at 99 mph to the wall in left field, where it was caught by Riley Greene.
It wasn’t a “Welcome to Petco” moment, because Castellanos has played in San Diego enough over his previous 13 years in the major leagues to know what the night air here does to fly balls. He also knew when the ball left the bat that he hadn’t gotten all of it.
“Maybe during the day,” he said, demonstrating his familiarity with how the Padres’ ballpark plays.
It was the second time Castellanos has just missed in his six at-bats this season.
His fly ball to center field in a pinch-hit at-bat with the bases loaded in the eighth inning of the season opener left his bat at 100 mph with a too-high 44 degree launch angle.
Tidbits
Ramón Laureano had the Padres‘ first three-hit game of the season. He is the only Padres player to have hit safely in all three games.
Xander Bogaerts was 0-for-4, his first game without a hit. He did put three balls in play at 98.9 mph or harder. Of the 12 balls he has put in play this season, seven have been hit at least that hard.
The four walks issued by Vásquez and Miller brought the Padres pitching staff’s season total to 16, tied for second most in the majors. After seven of the 12 Tigers who walked in the first two games ended up scoring, none did so last night.
Manny Machado struck out and walked twice against Flaherty last night. That makes him 2-for-18 with 10 walks against Flaherty. That is a .111 average and .429 on-base percentage.
Please read Annie Heilbrunn’s first Q&A of the season (here). Michael King was the subject this week, and he talks about working in his dad’s ice cream shop, the food of Rhode Island, growing to love the West Coast and his friendship with Pivetta. It is a gem of a read.
All right, that’s it for me.
No game today. Talk to you Tuesday.