Good morning from Seattle,
This is what the Padres had been waiting for and working for.
“This was a great weekend,” Gavin Sheets said. “Against a really good pitching staff too. … This week could have gone one of two ways, and I think it made a really good turn.”
Sheets is a huge reason it went the way it did — with the Padres sweeping the Mariners to complete a 4-2 trip before returning home to host the Dodgers for thee games.
He reached base every time he went to the plate yesterday, rounded them twice on home runs, doubled in a run and walked twice to complete a road trip that was unprecedented by any player in the major leagues this season and will almost certainly result in him being named National League Player of the Week.
You can read in my game story (here) from yesterday’s 8-3 victory over the Mariners about how starting pitcher Lucas Giolito was as good as the Padres could have hoped for long enough that it didn’t matter when he stopped being good in his debut for the team.
But when considering an offense that just has to be better than it has been, the big takeaway from the weekend was that the Padres took to heart what they were reminded of in their hitters meeting at the start of the series.
They got back to spraying line drives. They hit with a patient urgency.
Entering this weekend, the Padres had been outscored 130-100 in the first six innings of games. Against the Mariners, they scored 13 of their 17 runs in the first six innings.
In the Padres’ first 43 games, opposing starting pitchers had thrown 21 quality starts and were allowing the Padres a .205 batting average and 1.9 runs a game. Against the three Mariners starters, all of whom had an ERA of 3.78 or better, the Padres hit .235 and scored a total of 14 runs. Just one of them turned in a quality start.
In 12 of their 26 games leading up to this weekend, the Padres had hit fewer than five line drives. They hit a season-high 15 on Friday, five on Saturday and seven on Sunday.
The Padres had in their first 43 games scored five runs in an inning twice. They did it twice this weekend. They had scored at least three runs in an inning 20 times this season and did it five times this weekend.
“It (would be) kind of nice to get that every day,” manager Craig Stammen said with a laugh. “But that’s impossible.”
You can read in a story I wrote yesterday (here) about how what happened this weekend is what hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. has been preaching and reiterated to the hitters before Friday’s game.
“They’re taking a little bit simpler approach, just trying to hit line drives, trying to simplify it a little bit,” Stammen said of what the Padres hitters did better this weekend. “Not trying to do too much, which sounds like what you should do all the time. But sometimes honing in on that type and buying into that is what you’ve got to do.”
Making the most
Stammen said after Friday’s 2-0 victory that the way the Padres hit that night felt like it should have produced more runs.
Yesterday was almost the opposite of that, as the Padres pretty much maximized their 10 hits.
The first nine of those hits either drove in runs or led to runs (or both).
Hit 1: Sheets hit a solo homer in the first inning.
Hit 2: After Xander Bogaerts led off the fifth inning with a walk and stole two bases, Ty France’s two-out single scored him from third.
Hits 3 & 4: Miguel Andujar hit a one-out double in the sixth and scored on Sheets’ second homer.
Hits 5 & 6: Machado followed Sheets to the plate and doubled. He scored on Jackson Merrill’s two-out double.
Hit 7: Ramón Laureano walked before France drove in him and Merrill with a single.
Hits 8 & 9: Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the seventh inning with an infield single he bounced to the left side, stole second base and scored on Sheets’ one-out double.
“Just consistent, good at-bats,” France said. “Just team at-bats. There is a lot of unselfish baseball going on.”
Trio trying too hard?
Machado’s double in the sixth inning was his first extra-base hit in seven games. Merrill’s double in the sixth was his first extra-base hit in nine games.
It was the first time since April 11 they had hit extra-base hits in the same game.
Yesterday was the first time since April 27 that Machado, Merrill and Tatis all got hits in the same game. In the 18 games since then, they have hit a collective .164/.231/.249.
So when we talk about the Padres’ offense struggling, we’re really mainly talking about the epic struggles of the three hitters being counted on to produce at a high level.
We have talked about that plenty. And we have talked a little bit about why.
We can’t stop talking about it.
The reality is that with Tatis and Merrill, in particular, mechanical issues have been exacerbated recently by mounting crises of confidence.
And there is one factor above all else that explains why the terrifically talented trio is hitting so terribly.
They are simply not doing damage on pitches on which they should be doing damage.
This has been perhaps the Padres’ biggest overall struggle. But it is the stars that are expected to punish mistakes. And it is the stars that are not doing that most.
The following charts show how Machado, Merrill and Tatis compare to the MLB average on miss rate, foul rate, batting average and slugging percentage on pitches that big-league hitters generally have success against.
There can be myriad reasons for a player missing pitches he should hit. But mechanical flaws that show up because a player is trying to do too much is what the Padres believe has happened with their struggling stars.
“We’re swinging at mostly the right pitches, and we’re fouling them off,” Souza said. “And when you face this kind of elite pitching, you can’t foul off those types of pitches. I think that’s what it comes down to. We don’t miss our pitch and we don’t try and do too much, I think we’re in a better spot. … When it’s not going well, everybody is trying to do a little bit more to make it go well and come up with a big knock. It’s just about pulling back and just doing what you do, taking what the pitcher gives you. If it’s over the middle, we don’t need to send it to the moon. We just need to keep moving the ball, pass the baton. That’s been our motto all year long. Just keep passing the baton.”
Hit this way
No other MLB player has had a six-game stretch this season with an OPS (2.177) or slugging percentage (1.438) as high as what Sheets has put up in the past week.
He has in this span raised his batting average 53 points (to .262) and his OPS 206 points (.to .896).
And what most pleases him are some of the plate appearances in which he did not get a hit.
“It’s not trying to do too much at the plate,” he said. “It’s the opposite of when you’re struggling and you get in there and you try to do too much or you try to get two hits in one at-bat. Right now, it’s getting in there and looking for pitches to handle and trying not to miss them and not trying to do too much with it. I’m the happiest with taking my walks. April wasn’t very good in terms of that and taking my walks.”
Plate discipline was a point of emphasis for Sheets in spring training, with an eye toward forcing pitchers to come into the zone more. He walked eight times in 51 plate appearances in the spring before doing just five times in his first 109 plate appearances this season.
He has walked nine times in his 34 plate appearances over his past eight games, including the seven times in 23 plate appearances on this trip.
“Those lead to big weeks,” he said. “If you can get yourself in good counts and get pitches to do damage on and not miss them and stay off the pitches the pitchers want you to chase, I mean, that’s hitting in a nutshell. And it’s really hard some weeks. Some weeks you have good weeks, and try to ride these out as long as possible.”
Sheets touched on the other key to his success — and any dangerous hitter’s success — in the above quote.
Not only has he chased just 18% (10 of 56) of the pitches he saw outside the strike zone over the past six games, he is 10-for-13 (four homers, double) on pitches in the strike zone. That includes him going 6-for-7 (two homers) on fastballs in the zone and 4-for-5 (homer, double) on pitches in the heart of the zone.
“Just being simple, being short to it and trusting the hands,” Sheets said. “That has been the biggest thing, is just taking those tough pitches and getting the pitches in the middle of the zone.”
Maybe today’s hitters meeting could just be video of Sheets laying off pitches and crushing mistakes.
Power that matters
I wrote in Thursday’s newsletter about how clutch Sheets has been since hitting a game-tying pinch-hit home run in the seventh inning of his first game with the Padres on opening day in 2025.
And while they were hit early in games — and, thus, cannot rightly be considered “clutch” — his homer Saturday and his first homer yesterday ran his total to 15 home runs (out of 28 total homers) that have either tied a game or given the Padres a lead. That is one more than Machado’s 14 game-tying or go-ahead homers (of his 33 total since the start of 2025).
All but two of Sheets’ team-leading nine home runs this season have tied a game or put the Padres ahead.
Did his job
The Padres signed Giolito last month because they needed some quality innings.
Giolito prides himself on being that guy, and he sure seemed like he was headed toward giving them a long outing right away.
He had allowed one hit and hit a batter while throwing just 59 pitches through five scoreless innings, and then his new team scored five runs in the top of the sixth inning.
Giolito is quoted in my game story as saying his focus was not the same when he took the mound after that long half-inning with a 7-0 lead. That affected his mechanics, and he walked the only three batters he faced before being pulled.
“I feel like that throughout the outing we made pitches when we needed to, especially when I would fall behind early,” Giolito said. “We were able to execute and get weak contact and the misses when we needed them. … But it leaves a little bit of sour taste. Definitely some stuff to work on. Gotta maintain that high level of focus throughout until you’re done.”
Hitting back
This weekend was just France’s second time returning to T-Mobile Park since the Mariners traded him at the deadline in 2024.
Sunday was his first time starting in the series, and he went 3-for-4 and drove in three runs.
“I love coming back here,” said France, who spent parts of five seasons with the Mariners and was an All-Star for them in 2022. “This place is special. A lot of good years here. I built a lot of good relationships. The fanbase always treats me well and welcomes me back.”
Tidbits
Andujar doubled for the fourth time in six games and remains the team leader with 11 (one more than Sheets). The hit came on a 2-2 pitch. Andujar’s .254 average (17-for-61) with two strikes is 11th best in the major leagues among those with at least 50 at-bats that have gone to two strikes.
Andujar, France and Sheets have been in the starting lineup together just three times, all three in the past seven games and all three victories. Sheets plays left field so France can play first base when they are in the lineup together, so there is potentially a defensive sacrifice made in left field. But the Padres will take the risk for the potential offensive payoff.
Andujar played third base while Machado served as the designated hitter for a second straight day. Stammen said the decision was part of the ongoing effort to keep Machado fresh. Machado said he is healthy.
Stammen said catcher Luis Campusano is doing “some baseball activity” but is still experiencing some pain in his fractured toe.
Merrill was dropped to sixth in the order after batting leadoff in his previous 10 games. Stammen said the move was made, in part, with the hope Merrill will relax. Tatis batted leadoff for the first time since April 4.
Padres catcher Freddy Fermin has lost six consecutive ABS challenges after winning 14 of his first 21 challenges.
Bogaerts’ eight-pitch walk in the fifth inning ended with the closest pitch to have been challenged in a Padres game this season. And it’s difficult to imagine any ball being closer to the strike zone.
All right, that’s it for me. Flight home this morning and start of a series against the Dodgers tonight
Talk to you tomorrow.