X has to hit<\/p>\n
Xander Bogaerts began last night\u2019s game as a potential hero, hitting a two-run homer in the first inning. He finished the game batting as the potential winning run and made the final out.<\/p>\n
\u201cStarted off great and ended probably not the way you envisioned the day,\u201d he said. \u201cIt sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The day began with questions about just why it was that Stammen was batting Bogaerts in the No.3 spot for the fourth consecutive day when Bogaerts was 4-for-28 (.143) over his previous eight games and was batting .194\/.290\/.264 in his\u00a0 previous 60 games.<\/p>\n
Stammen\u2019s answer might have struck as curious.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had a little bit of tough stretch here the last couple months,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cTrying to give him a little confidence boost at a place in the lineup he has hit a lot of times in his career and done very well there. Just trying to mix it up and see if we can get one of what we think is our best players, get him going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Say what you will, but Stammen knows the Padres almost certainly need Bogaerts to finish in the same manner he has in his previous three seasons with them.<\/p>\n
He has been a key component to their strong finishes.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/xbfinish_9b224d.png\")
<\/p>\n
Inefficiently inconsistent<\/p>\n
The Padres reached double-digits in hits again and walked three times, and they again did not make enough of those base runners.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust kind of a lot of missed opportunities,\u201d Stammen said. \u201c\u2026 10 hits today. I think we had a few walks too in there. So, we had a lot of base runners, and we didn\u2019t really cash them in. Only one hit with a runner in scoring position. That was the last one in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was nothing new.<\/p>\n
The Padres have a .324 on-base percentage since June 8, 13th in the major leagues in that span. They have scored 125 runs, which ranks 22nd.<\/p>\n
Their rate of 2.92 baserunners per run ranks last in MLB in that period.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 only runner in scoring position between the first and ninth innings last night was Ty France, who should have scored after he led off the sixth inning with a double and moved to third on a fly ball out.<\/p>\n
But Luis Rengifo\u2019s strikeout and Luis Campusano\u2019s foul out stranded France.<\/p>\n
To say the France should have scored might be overstating it.<\/p>\n
But the Padres have driven home a runner who reaches third base with less than two outs a little more than 47% of the time. Just five clubs are worse. The MLB average is 51.6%.<\/p>\n
The Padres entered yesterday ranked eighth in MLB in percentage of productive outs converted (30.8%). That is not terrible. But it is a precipitous drop-off. They led the league into May.<\/p>\n
They are actually batting significantly better with runners in scoring position. They are batting .286 in that circumstances in 30 games since June 8 (eighth in MLB) compared to .235 (22nd) before that. But they have gotten zero or one hit with runners in scoring position in nine of those 30 games.<\/p>\n
Explaining the wait on Jake<\/p>\n
Stammen sent the switch-hitting Rengifo to the plate to hit for Jase Bowen against righty Chad Dallas in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n
There was simply no way that Stammen thought Rengifo was a better option than Jake Cronenworth, who bats from the left side. So it was obvious in the moment that either Cronenworth was hurt or that Stammen was committed to him getting a day off.<\/p>\n
It was the latter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to give him a blow today,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cWhoever goes in there has to go play second base after that. So, just a little bit of giving Jake a day based on him coming back off the IL and basically playing every day since then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rengifo remained in the game at second base while Fernando Tatis Jr. moved from second to right field to replace Bowen.<\/p>\n
Cronenworth ended up pinch-hitting for Miguel Andujar in the ninth inning and striking out against Louis Varland.<\/p>\n
Rengifo, hit .205 for the Brewers before being released in mid-June, was making his first plate appearance for the Padres and first big-league plate appearance since June 14. Cronenworth was hitting .303 (10-for-33) in his previous nine games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not playing every game like Game 7 at this point,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cI think that would be a little foolish. I\u2019ve got to manage that myself. Like, we want to win the game, but we\u2019ve got 26 guys on the roster and we have to trust all those guys. And they\u2019re here for a reason. They\u2019re Major League Baseball players. And you weigh that out every day, and you weigh the person also, and what\u2019s best for them and how they\u2019re going to have a successful rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tidbits<\/p>\n
Jeff Sanders wrote (here<\/a>) yesterday afternoon about an injury France has been playing with and the return of Dylan Cease to Petco Park. All right, that\u2019s it for me.<\/p>\n Talk to you tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning, Such is the plight of a team hovering around .500. And the plight of its fans.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-394746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThis week\u2019s \u201cClubhouse Chatter\u201d from Sanders (here<\/a>) has players talking about which players on other teams they consider their closest friend.
\nLast night was the Padres\u2019 sixth consecutive loss in a game decided by no more than two runs. They are 21-21 in those games. (While such results can be arbitrary, they were 46-35 last season and an MLB-best 40-25 in 2024.)
\nThe Padres fell to 28-15 when scoring first. They began the season 19-5.
\nThe Padres came back to win a remarkable 12 times in the first 23 games in which they lost a lead. Last night was their fifth straight loss in a game in which they lost a lead. (They are now 12-16 in such games.)
\nManny Machado singled twice and has multiple hits in the past two games. It is the first time he has had multiple hits in back-to-back games since April 26 and 27. He was batting .232 on April 27. His current average is .196, the highest it has been since he was batting .197 on May 9.
\nMachado is batting .288 with a 1.094 OPS over his past 18 games (since June 20). His OPS is ninth highest in MLB in that stretch.
\nRodolfo Dur\u00e1n singled in both of his at-bats before Campusano hit for him in the sixth. It was Dur\u00e1n\u2019s second multi-hit game in 26 starts.
\nGavin Sheets was 0-for-4 with a walk, which ran his on-base streak to 11 games.\u00a0 He is batting just .194 but getting on base at a .341 clip during the streak, which is four games shy of the career high he set last June.<\/p>\n