Good morning from Denver,
The Padres and Diamondbacks had been separated by no more than a half-game for 15 days before the Padres’ lead increased to 1½ games on Saturday.
Now, for the first time since July 25, more than two games separate them.
And for the first time since May 25, the Padres have a 2½-game cushion between them and the first team on the outside of the playoff picture.
Yesterday’s 6-4 victory over the Giants also helped get the Padres within 1½ games of the Cubs and keep them within 1½ games of the Phillies, who are ostensibly tied for the first wild-card spot.
The Diamondbacks, Cubs and Phillies have all played one more game than the Padres, who begin a four-game series against the Rockies tonight.
The Phillies are off tonight. The Diamondbacks and Cubs do not play Thursday.
At that point, all four teams will have nine games remaining.
The good version
While they were far more interested in how their fantasy football teams were doing, the Padres did see the Rangers had beaten the Diamondbacks a short time before first pitch at Oracle Park yesterday.
“They played early, so we definitely knew they lost,” Manny Machado said. “But ultimately, we’ve got to play our game. We look up there, we know if they win or lose, but control the controllables. It’s the biggest part of it. Play our game.”
Those are all cliches because they’re true.
The Padres are in control of their destiny now. And they are so far controlling what they can control.
They did so yesterday with a starter on a limited pitch count and a bullpen down its three best pitchers. You can read about that in my game story (here).
That awful series in Cincinnati, which followed that strangely unfortunate series against the Rays and completed a 1-5 road trip, seems so long ago.
The Padres have won eight of nine since.
They talked after that trip about how there was no more time for them to be less than what they could be.
“We have the ability to turn it up a little bit; at least the focus,” manager Craig Stammen said last night. “And turning up focus doesn’t necessarily mean, like, playing well and winning games. It’s hard to win games. But I think the focus, the attention to detail has been turned up. And we’ve played good baseball, and we’ve won quite a few games here lately. So it’s a good time to get on a good run, and hopefully that carries us on the rest of the year.”
Yes, the Padres do have the ability to turn it up. It is what they have relied on. It can be maddening to watch them lull when it is clear what they are capable of. But they have been consistently able to spectacularly reverse their freefalls.
I wrote about their resiliency (here) after that Cincinnati series. And they have once again put together a good run after a bad run.
“It has been a long year,” Machado said last night. “We’ve learned a lot from the years. We put ourselves in bad situations before. We knew how to come out of it. It’s nothing different now. We play some good baseball. Hopefully, we continue playing the baseball we’ve been playing, like we have been playing and finish off the season strong.”
The Padres’ .623 winning percentage (30-23) since the All-Star break is third-best in the major leagues behind the Red Sox (36-20, .643) and Brewers (33-20, .630).
That is nothing new.
No team has been better after the All-Star break over the past three seasons.
Asked his theory on why that is, Fernando Tatis Jr. said, “Probably knowing the team. Trying to get together as one, trying to figure it out how we’re gonna attack as an offense, attack as a defense and just blending it together. It takes time. But the great part is we’re doing it when it matters the most.”
First is for three
Ethan Salas slid head first into third base, stood up and looked back to the dugout and then to the sky with his hands held wide.
The implication was that it was about time.
It had been just 15 at-bats, but it felt longer for a 20-year-old wanting to prove himself.
“Like a breath of fresh air,” Salas said of the moment. “So I’m happy to get the first one out of the way.”
Salas, the Padres’ top prospect, had a number of at-bats since being called up on Sept. 1 in which he looked like a rookie. But he had from the start seemed assured in the batter’s box and had a few balls recently that came excruciatingly close to being hits.
FIRST CAREER HIT FOR ETHAN SALAS IS A TRIPLE#padres pic.twitter.com/mTCAq9IfXP
— Padres Central (@PadresCentral_) September 14, 2026
His fly ball in yesterday’s fourth inning was almost caught by right fielder Jung Hoo Lee up against the wall. But it instead fell behind a leaping Lee, hit off the base of the wall and kicked back toward the grass. As it did, Salas sped around second base without slowing, knocked his helmet off as he passed the bag and got to third without drawing the relay throw.
“As soon as I hit it, I was just like, ‘Get over his head, get over his head, get over his head’ in my mind,” Salas said. “And then as soon as I saw it go down, I just put my head down and looked for Bobby (Henley, the Padres’ third base coach).”
Salas (20 years, 140 days) became the youngest player to triple for his first major league hit since Machado did so on Sept. 8, 2012, 34 days after his 20th birthday.
“I know how much he wanted it, how much he wanted to get it out the way,” Machado said. “You can kind of start seeing he was getting a little anxious out there and trying to go get it a little bit. I think he’s been having great at-bats overall. … It’s hard. It’s tough to get a hit in the big leagues. Just to finally see him get it, he can breathe now. He can relax and play his game.”
Executing a plan
Yesterday was the Padres’ first time facing an established starting pitcher since Monday.
The four pitchers they faced in between had a combined 14 major league starts between them.
In Logan Webb, they not only were going against a pitcher with 204 career starts but one they had seen quite a bit.
Yesterday was Webb’s 19th start against the Padres, tied for sixth most among active pitchers.
So the Padres knew what they had to do. They have experienced plenty of times that once Webb gets locked in that he can be nearly impossible to hit. Additionally, the late-afternoon start time meant shadows across the infield were going to make hitting difficult for a good portion of the game.
“We wanted to go out there and get some runs early,” Machado said.
They were able to execute their plan, in part because Webb left some pitches up in the zone and because the Padres’ “big three” came through.
Tatis singled and scored in both innings. Jackson Merrill drove in two runs with a double in the first inning. Machado walked in the first and homered in the second.
The five runs the Padres scored in the first two innings were tied for their second-most in the first two innings of a game this season, and it was just the fourth time they scored multiple runs in both of the first two innings.
Salas’ triple and Tatis’ third single gave them the Padres their sixth run.
While they reached base just once in the final five innings, it was difficult to have much of a problem with an offense that has scored at least six runs in four consecutive games and is batting .331 with 19 extra-base hits (10 doubles, four triples, five home runs) in that span.
Pivetta’s second go
Nick Pivetta worked his way back after being sidelined for four months.
Time allowed his elbow flexor strain to heal enough for him to pitch. The hope is that will be for a long time without interruption. But the reality is Pivetta’s elbow could give out at any time.
So it makes sense that he is concerned with just one thing.
“I just want to contribute the best way I possibly can,” he said. “Whatever innings that is is what it is, and that’s what I got tonight. That’s what I’m happy with.”
In his second start since returning, Pivetta gave the Padres four innings yesterday. He was finished after 69 pitches. That was six more than he threw in his five scoreless innings six days earlier in his first start off the injured list. And it was 10 or so fewer pitches than his prescribed maximum last night.
“He had the really long second inning with a lot of pitches,” Stammen said of Pivetta throwing 28 pitches in the second. “So I think right then it was going to be a shorter leash after that. Got out of the last inning, and I just felt like, you know, there wasn’t a need for any more after that.”
Pivetta had to escape a bases-loaded jam with one out in the fourth. He did so by getting a line drive out to left field and fly ball out to center field. After that final out, he walked off the field pumping his arms in front of his body and shouting.
“Extremely pleased,” he said. “I really don’t want to give up that many runs in that bases-loaded situation. Was able to make some good pitches.”
Pivetta got seven misses on 32 swings yesterday compared to just one miss on 25 swings in his previous start. The Giants also put just three balls in play at 99 mph or harder, three fewer than the Nationals did.
Bullpen depth
Padres relievers have had plenty of opportunities to be the heroes this season.
Yesterday was the 45th game in which the Padres did not get more than four innings from their starting pitcher.
They are 20-25 in those games, which is the second-most victories in the major leagues behind the White Sox (23) and the third-best record behind the Rays (17-19) and Yankees (14-16).
It was more remarkable that they closed out a close win yesterday without Mason Miller, Adrian Morejón and Bradgley Rodriguez. Their three back-end relievers were unavailable due to their recent workload.
So it was Kyle Hart, David Morgan, Wandy Peralta, Randy Vásquez and Yuki Matsui combining to work the final five innings.
“Those guys have had really good seasons this year,” Stammen said. “They’ve been pitching really well. They just haven’t been pitching in those types of situations as often. And sometimes those guys, from what I remember (as a former reliever), are just waiting for that opportunity just to prove that they can pitch in those situations. And tonight they proved that they’re up for the task.”
How they navigated yesterday was a focus in my game story.
In that story was this quote from Matsui, who earned his first save of the season:
“We are at this point of the season where it doesn’t even matter,” he said. “… We are just all in to get 27 outs.”
Altitude attitude
Vásquez worked a scoreless eighth inning yesterday in his first appearance since Tuesday.
Had the Padres thought using him earlier and for more than one inning last night was the best path to victory, they would have done it.
But they believe in their bullpen depth and that getting through yesterday the way they did was best for that game and the ones coming up.
Because they believe in Vásquez at Coors Field.
There isn’t room to fit Vásquez into the starting rotation, but the Padres do plan to take advantage of his ability to pitch well a mile high.
They could use him in a long role, if necessary or deploy him in at least two shorter outings as they try to piece together innings over four games at a ballpark that takes a lot out of pitching staffs.
Vásquez shut out the Rockies over seven innings at Coors Field in April. That followed two quality starts there last season. Even after allowing four runs in 2⅔ innings at the mile-high ballpark in his first start there in 2024, his 3.32 ERA is second lowest among any pitcher who has made at least four starts at Coors over the past three seasons.
“He’s got a good pitch-mix profile with the three fastballs that isn’t as affected as some pitches are in Colorado — as if you’re a breaking ball pitcher or a high fastball (and) changeup pitcher,” Stammen said. “So we feel like his stuff is the least diminished and … we definitely feel like he matches up well against them in that stadium.”
Stammen, who relied heavily on his sinker, knows about success at Coors Field. His 1.22 ERA in 27 innings (25 games) there is the lowest all-time by a pitcher who has thrown at least 20 innings at the venue.
Tidbits
Yesterday was Tatis’ 16th three-hit game of the season, tied with Luis Arraez for most in the major leagues.
All three of his hits were singles bounced up the middle – at 105, 111 and 103 mph. Tatis’ 182 balls in play at 100 mph or greater are second most in the majors behind the Rays’ Junior Caminero (184). In 52 games since the All-Star break, Tatis has hit 73 balls at least 100 mph, eight more than the second-place Caminero.
Tatis is batting .433 (13-for-30) and has reached base in 19 of his 36 plate appearances during an eight-game on-base streak.
Machado’s home run was the 396th of his career, tying him with Joe Carter for 63rd all-time.
Machado is the only player to have at least 27 home runs in each of the past 11 full seasons.
Merrill’s double in the first inning broke his tie with Machado for the team lead in RBIs. Machado re-tied it with his home run an inning later. They both have 82 RBIs.
Peralta stranded the two runners he inherited from Morgan in the sixth inning and has now stranded the past 17 runners left to him.
Yesterday was the Padres’ 10th sweep of the season and sixth in their past 15 series.
Gavin Sheets, on the injured list with plantar fasciitis, departed for Arizona yesterday to ramp up his activity with the goal of returning by season’s end. Even if he returns, Sheets could undergo surgery in the offseason.
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.