Good morning from Seattle,
The Padres beat the Mariners 2-0 last night with some really good baseball that involved them creating some runs and preventing some runs in impressive ways.
You can read about how it went down in my game story (here).
Before we get into breaking down Mason Miller’s gigantic and stressful contribution and another (albeit different kind of) wild finish to a Padres victory, let’s talk about what was arguably the offense’s best night in three weeks.
No, really. It was. And it was hardly arguable, actually.
What they did last night was highly encouraging when compared to how anemic their offense has been for going on a month.
The Padres scored just two runs, but they hit the ball hard, got hard hits and lined out more than they had in some time.
That execution followed an admonition by hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. in the pregame hitters meeting that they had gotten away from their approach.
A good number of people reading this just rolled their eyes or spit out their coffee or groaned or all three. And now they are writing me an email:
So what?! They scored two runs?!
Well, consider:
The Padres’ nine hits last night were more than in any of their previous eight games and more than in all but one of their previous 15 games. Six of those hits came on line drives.
Their 10 balls put in play at 100 mph or harder were their most since April 12, a span of 27 games. Just three of those 10 were ground balls. In their previous 15 games, 43% of their balls put in play at 100 mph or greater had been hit on the ground.
Their 12 line drives tied a season high set on April 5. They had hit more than six line drives in just five of their previous 24 games.
Last night, six of their dozen liners had an exit velocity of 100 mph or greater. That was twice as many 100-plus line drives as they had in any of their previous 15 games, and they were averaging 1.6 line drives that hard over those 15 games.
Five of the 100-plus line drives came against Emerson Hancock. It was the most 100-plus line drives he has allowed in any of his 40 career starts.
This was a positive sign and nothing more. The Padres hitters must keep doing it. They can’t abandon their approach.
But it was, nonetheless, a good step for what has been one of the worst offensive teams in the major leagues this season and had since April 28 (15 games) been the absolute worst in virtually every significant category.
“I thought we swung the bats really well,” manager Craig Stammen said of last night’s game. “We hit a lot of line drives right at guys, a lot of caught line drives, which goes back to the beginning of the season, and I think we have just got to live in that space. We’ve got to keep hitting line drives, see how it works out, and sooner or later they’re going to fall. I felt like that two runs was about the least amount of runs we could have scored tonight. I felt like we could have scored a few more.”
Miller time (again)
Miller regained the major league lead with his 14th save last night. And he worked overtime again to do it.
It was the second time in six days he had to get four outs and throw an abundance of pitches to close out a victory.
“I feel better this time than last time,” Miller said. “… I think it’s the body knowing what 30 pitches feels like and responding probably a little better this time than previously. The results were pretty similar, just not being as efficient as I should be.”
Some of that was on Miller. He walked the first batter of the ninth inning and threw just 19 strikes among his 34 pitches.
There was also the matter of the first batter he faced, Randy Arozarena, literally throwing his bat at a slider down and away and getting a single on a ball that — after exploding his bat in at least five pieces – popped over Miller and rolled slowly on the grass for an infield single.
Randy Arozarena threw his bat at the pitch … the bat EXPLODED 😅 pic.twitter.com/mcCMIt3MWi
— MLB (@MLB) May 16, 2026
That was a good pitch, as was the one Cole Young grounded through the right side with one out in the ninth before Miller struck out the next two batters.
But Miller is no longer unhittable.
In his past nine appearances, his strikeouts, swing and miss and number of swings (in and out of the zone) are down precipitously.
While that, more than anything, illustrates just how dominant Miller was in his first 11 games, it cannot be dismissed.
“It’s just consistency,” Miller said last night. “That could be a result of workload. I threw the most innings I’ve ever thrown in the month of April. I feel great, but sometimes you feel great and there’s some other responses too. So obviously, like, we’ll look at some stuff and try and to rectify it.”
The primary driver as it pertains to Miller’s workload is that the Padres are tied for the major-league lead with 18 games decided by one or two runs. They have won 13 of those.
“We’re playing a ton of close games,” Miller said. “It’s just answering the bell. I came out of the gates really strong, commanding the zone, filling it up. Kind of have gotten away from that recently, which obviously I’m aware of as much as everybody else. Just kind of embracing that mentality of just getting your team to the end and finding a way.”
Miller has worked 21 innings over 20 appearances. That is a 77-game pace that would be 17 more than he has ever pitched.
That is not going to be allowed to happen.
The potential problem, should the Padres continue to play an abundance of close games, is that Miller (and other high-leverage relievers) will not be available in some games they would otherwise be used.
Because the Padres will not overuse their relievers. They will sit them as needed. For instance, it would be enormously shocking if Miller appears in a game again before Monday.
Pitching coach Ruben Niebla is highly cognizant of every pitcher’s health. He takes their figurative temperature daily via looking at their pitch metrics and other indicators such as arm angle and their workouts.
And Stammen has a unique perspective on bullpen usage, having spent the bulk of his playing career in one.
He threw a career-high 88⅓ innings in 67 games in 2021, a season in which the Padres’ starting rotation was decimated by injury and the relievers were asked to do a lot. Too much.
“We have such an elite bullpen,” Stammen said. “We do need to use it to help us win games, and so far, it’s worked in our favor that way. Obviously, we can’t tear them down and not have them at the end of the season. I was part of that 2021 season. We used the bullpen a ton. I pitched more innings than I ever had in my career. And by the end were we a little cashed out? Maybe, maybe not. You know, you don’t really know. We were able to stay healthy, but (were) we as good as what we (could) be? So I’m very cognizant of how that’s got to work for a full season.”
Last night, Jeremiah Estrada was warming up from the start of the ninth inning. How long a leash Miller had is not known.
“I guess we’ll never know,” Stammen said through a grin. “I don’t know if I decided yet. You definitely you want to preserve him for the whole season, and yet you want to win a game in the moment, which is difficult to make a decision between those two things when that type of situation is going on. But definitely, it was getting towards the end. Put it that way.”
Miller is not going to bow out.
“They know that I’m available,” Miller said. “It’s never like the game plan situation of, like, ‘Hey, we want to use you for four outs today. But game situations come and you don’t really want to get to the end of the game having not fired me when you have a chance to win a game. So I think that’s something we’re all aware of, and communication has been good. It’s something I’m prepared to do and excited for when I get the opportunity.”
Oh yeah, that
The second year of the Vedder Cup, the unofficial-turned-official name given to the contrived rivalry between the Padres and Mariners, has hardly been a thing.
Until last night, when the Mariners made it a part of their in-game production, playing Pearl Jam songs between some innings and displaying a “Vedder Cup” themed graphic on the video board several times, you might have thought it no longer existed.
But last night’s victory assured the Padres will leave Seattle with the custom 1963 Fender guitar that serves as the perpetual trophy for the Vedder Cup. They plan to display it at Petco Park.
The team has continued to honor its financial commitment to the Epidemolysis Bullosa Research Partnership founded by Eddie Vedder. The Pearl Jam front man’s mother, Karen, a San Diego resident, threw out the first pitch before the final game of last month’s series between the Padres and Mariners at Petco Park. A press release from Major League Baseball earlier this week included mention of the “rivalry” and its origins.
But the words “Vedder Cup” have not been mentioned in any official capacity by anyone affiliated with the Padres in 2026.
In the eyes of the team, a fun idea took a sour turn in October when the Padres played at Wrigley Field in the National League Wild Card Series.
There leading the crowd in a rendition of “Take me out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch in Game 1 and sitting in the front row of seats for every game decked out in Cubs gear and celebrating with the Cubs in the home clubhouse after Game 3 was Eddie Vedder.
After moving from Illinois as a child, Vedder spent the bulk of his formative years in San Diego before relocating to Seattle and having his music career rocket him to stardom.
Everyone knew when the “Vedder Cup” was appropriated by the teams last year — after a couple decades of many Padres fans referring to the annual interleague matchup that way — that Vedder was a Cubs fan.
The chance to play off his ties to both cities while promoting the games and raising money for charity was appealing to the Padres and Mariners.
His devotion to the Cubs didn’t matter. Until it did.
No one could have known when the idea was conceived that the Padres would have to play the Cubs in Chicago, where they would end up having their season ended.
Padres officials insist no one is upset. It was just that members of the organization and a good number of fans blanched at the way it all went down, and having Vedder rooting against the Padres so front-and-center took the fun out of the rivalry named in his honor.
Randy = wins
The Padres are 8-1 in Randy Vásquez’s starts. That includes a 5-0 mark in starts that have come after a Padres loss.
“He’s turned into a little bit of a stopper for us,” Stammen said. “… You (can’t) always put a finger on it when a team wins behind a certain pitcher. You always say, ‘Well, he must be nice to everybody in the clubhouse.’ And Randy is. We love having Randy. He puts smiles on everybody’s faces. And the music he plays pregame is different than everybody else’s also, and he plays it a little louder than everybody else. So maybe that’s the key.”
The music Stammen refers to is a certain genre of reggaeton known as Dembow.
There is, of course, the fact Vásquez is throwing harder and attacking the zone in a way that he did not in his two previous seasons starting for the Padres.
Last night was the fourth time this season he has thrown at least six scoreless innings.
He was at just 79 pitches last night, and Stammen assuredly would have left him in if not for the fact the Mariners had four left-handed batters in a row coming up.
“It was really hard to take him out of the game,” Stammen said. “I think just the way those lefties at the bottom of the lineup had kind of swung the bat against him, felt like we needed to go to (Adrian) Morejón there.”
X factor
Vásquez’s assessment of a play Xander Bogaerts made for the first out in the fifth inning was this:
“¡Increible!”
Bogaerts couldn’t deny it.
“Yeah, that was a good one,” he said.
On a grounder by Dominic Canzone to (and through) the hole at shortstop, Bogaerts chased down the ball, backhanded it on the run, turned, jumped and threw back toward first base. The ball bounced once, and a long stretch by first baseman Gavin Sheets got the out.
What a play by Xander Bogaerts at shortstop #Padres #ForTheFaithful pic.twitter.com/InJnxmRoY3
— Carlos (@LFGPads19) May 16, 2026
“To be honest, no,” Bogaerts said when asked whether he thought he was going to get the ball to first in time.
It was easily his best play of the season.
“For sure,” the 14-year veteran said. “It’s up there in my career. … Shows I can still play a little bit. I don’t need to move off (shortstop) yet.”
How low can he go?
Did you happen to catch where the pitch was that Miguel Andujar hit for a double in the fourth inning?
Miggy comes through. pic.twitter.com/koVfD8NCsQ
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) May 16, 2026
“I don’t know,” Andujar said with a smile when asked how he went down and not only hit a sweeper in the bottom corner of the zone but drove it to the gap in left-center at 101 mph. “… It was two strikes. I had to go get it.”
It was Andujar’s team-leading 10th double.
Timely theft
That double came two pitches after Sheets stole his career-high third base of the season. That steal of second did not draw a throw because Sheets got a magnificent jump against Hancock.
“We’ve probably got to do a little bit more of that,” Stammen said of running. “We’ve tried to do that, but sometimes when you’re not getting very many guys on base, it’s hard to take those chances.”
He’s hurt
The saga of Matt Waldron and the Padres goes on.
The right-hander was thisclose to being designated for assignment when he reported that an arm issue he had been dealing with had worsened after he pitched two innings on Thursday.
I explained it in a story (here).
This injury, which allows the Padres to essentially kick the can down the road on a decision about Waldron’s future, was met with skepticism by many fans and media.
That is understandable. The injury diagnosis was incredibly convenient.
That does not mean Waldron is not hurt. According to multiple people, he has been receiving treatment for discomfort in his upper arm.
Those people, all of whom are involved in the everyday oversight of players health, said Waldron didn’t tell anyone with the team about the severity of the injury until Thursday.
And a pitcher trying to keep his spot in the rotation (and his job) kept quiet about an injury is not terribly uncommon.
Tidbits
Vásquez’s quality start was the 10th by a Padres pitcher (Vásquez four, Michael King four, Walker Buehler two) this season. The Padres are 8-2 in those games.
Hancock (six innings, one run) turned in the 22nd quality start against the Padres. While that is the most any team has had thrown against it, the Padres are a somewhat remarkable 10-12 in those games. Leaguewide, teams that get a quality start from their starter are winning about 60% of the time.
Sheets was 2-for-3 with a walk last night. He is batting .321 (9-for-28) and reaching base at a .424 clip over his past nine games.
Catcher Freddy Fermin began the season relatively hot challenging called balls. But he was 0-for-2 on ABS challenges last night and has lost five straight. He has been successful on just 14 of his 26 challenges for the season.
Bogaerts was 2-for-4 and now has a team-leading 13 multi-hit games. Andujar, who also singled last night, is second on the team with 10 multi-hit games.
Ramón Laureano, who had multiple hits in seven of his first 22 starts this season, had gone 17 games without getting multiple hits before going 2-for-4 last night.
Jackson Merrill had his seventh three-strikeout game of the season. That is one more than he had in 271 games over his first two seasons (2024 and ‘25).
After Luis Arraez homered for the Giants last night, there are just four qualifying batters who have yet to hit a home run this season. They are the Pirates’ Nick Gonzales (159 plate appearances), the Nationals’ Nasim Nuñez (149), the Brewers’ Luis Rengifo (136) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (184). The Giants’ regional TV network trolled Tatis after Arraez’s home run.
Your move @tatis_jr https://t.co/yqH41c9T4d
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 16, 2026
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.