{"id":481566,"date":"2026-10-01T12:18:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481566\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T12:18:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:18:31","slug":"experience-is-invaluable-this-time-of-year-padres-veteran-xander-bogaerts-stays-hot-in-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481566\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Experience is invaluable this time of year’: Padres veteran Xander Bogaerts stays hot in playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the time it was past time to have a conversation about Xander Bogaerts, the decision already had been made.<\/p>\n

The Padres could no longer afford to have Bogaerts \u2014 a two-time World Series champ, a five-time Silver Slugger and a four-time All-Star who will turn 34 on Thursday \u2014 occupying a premium spot in the lineup with a sub-.640 OPS.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really wasn\u2019t like a big conversation, honestly,\u201d Padres manager Craig Stammen recalled of a July 21 talk with Bogaerts in Atlanta. \u201cI kind of sat down with him in the batting cage, and I said, \u2018Hey, I know you saw the lineup. I know you\u2019re probably not happy about it. But No. 1 goal for us is to get you right and give you a chance to have success.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bogaerts would be hitting eighth. His takeaway from that talk: \u201cPlay better.\u201d<\/p>\n

He certainly has since then.<\/p>\n

Amid blistering second-half surges from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill and loud if not consistent contact from Manny Machado, Bogaerts quietly put together the best month of his season, batting .315\/.425\/.479 for a .905 OPS in September as the Padres seized the NL\u2019s top wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he parlayed that strong finish into the postseason. Bogaerts homered during a two-hit game that helped make Game 1 a blowout of the Cubs. The blast was his second playoff homer as a Padre and the seventh of a long postseason resume, including his years with Boston. Bogaerts drove in the first run of Wednesday\u2019s Game 2 with a second-inning single; he added a one-out double in the fourth, then secured the Padres\u2019 4-1 win with a series-clinching putout in the ninth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"PadresPadres shortstop Xander Bogaerts hits a solo home run in the fourth inning against the Chicago Cubs during Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series at Petco Park on September 29, 2026 in San Diego, CA. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

\u201cExperience is invaluable this time of the year,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cYou just get different feelings playing postseason baseball. There\u2019s more intensity, more adrenaline, focus is heightened. You\u2019re facing better pitching typically. To have a guy that\u2019s experienced at it and even experienced at a very young age and experienced that his whole career, looked last night that he felt very comfortable in that environment, and I think it\u2019s a good sign for the Padres.\u201d<\/p>\n

That experience has been a crutch for the Padres in three postseason pushes with Bogaerts, who was hitting .303\/.343\/.545 in his last nine playoff games heading into Wednesday.<\/p>\n

While the Padres certainly expected quite a bit more return on their $280 million investment, Bogaerts at least has been more than capable of turning up his game in October. He\u2019s a blueprint for how to handle the ups and downs of a big-league season, especially the dips that plagued so many Padres before they took off this year.<\/p>\n

\"XanderXander Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth of the San Diego Padres celebrate after a win against the Chicago Cubs during Game 2 of the National League Wild Card Series at Petco Park on September 30, 2026 in San Diego, CA. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Jackson Merrill, who grew up a fan of Bogaerts and the Red Sox, has been watching the veteran since his own 2024 debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really respect people that go through their day-to-day (as) the same person every day,\u201d Merrill said Wednesday. \u201cThey come in, they do what they do, they do their work and they\u2019re professional about it. No matter how the season is going, (if the) team\u2019s winning or losing, they\u2019re going to be the same person every day and go out there and perform to the best of their ability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say that\u2019s a supreme example of a guy that\u2019s a super professional and he does everything he can to win every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked over the weekend, Bogaerts was rather simplistic about his upswing to finish the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwinging at good pitches,\u201d Bogaerts said. \u201cA couple balls falling. It\u2019s been nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bogaerts wound up hitting eighth 24 times, but he last appeared that low on Sept. 8. Since then he\u2019s largely alternated between the sixth and seventh holes as the drop in the order wound up having Stammen\u2019s desired effect. He batted sixth on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like hopefully bringing him down a little bit took a little bit of pressure off of him, allowed him to work out whatever kinks he was working out, get him right,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cAnd then the other part of it was, and what he understands the most, is we needed to win games. We had to have our best lineup, and we felt him batting eighth at that time was our best lineup. He\u2019s understood that, took it as the leader that he is, and he\u2019s proved to us that he can bounce back and be a great player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time it was past time to have a conversation about Xander Bogaerts, the decision already had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-481566","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\/481566","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=481566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}