The Padres won four of five against the Mariners and Giants, including a rare away sweep of their division rivals in San Francisco. The wins were important in one of the fiercest playoff races the league has seen in the modern format. Perhaps more important than the wins (if possible) was the return to form from difference makers the team has missed for much of the season.
Seattle
In the opening game in Seattle Yu Darvish made his second start since returning from the restricted list after a prolonged period away from the team. It was an encouraging outing: 5 innings pitched, 5 strikeouts, and only 2 earned runs both on solo home runs. Darvish hit 95.9 MPH on his 4-seam fastball and was efficient, needing only 63 pitches to complete the 5 innings. The life on the 2-seamer was there:
Courtesy: @PitchingNinja
He looks frustrated at the end of that pitch because he missed with location. But the stuff was great and the batter still whiffed. Darvish is rusty. But that is likely to improve as his reps increase. Darvish is in line to get three more starts across the team’s final 12 games. The last time the Padres made the playoffs Darvish was the team’s top starter all season, and in the postseason. This year he’s a luxury the team didn’t know if it would have. And he looks healthy.
The Padres trailed 2-0 in the third when singles from Donovan Solano and Luis Arraez put two runners on for Fernando Tatis Jr:
That’s a no doubter over the opposite field power alley off a very good pitcher in a very pitcher friendly park. The home run made it 3-2 Padres. In the bottom of the fourth Tatis would defend the one run lead he created (Jesse Agler’s narration is perfect):
Courtesy: @MichaelUCSD
This is an unusual play for an outfielder to make, the off-balance cross-body throw with no hesitation is more characteristic of a play from an infielder. We’ve written about the hard to quantify emergent properties of having an outfield made up entirely of former shortstops. Add another chapter to that analysis.
In the top of the sixth with the Padres still clinging to a 3-2 lead Manny Machado would chase George Kirby from the game and pass a milestone:
That was Machado’s 164th home run with the Padres, and it broke a tie with Nate Colbert for the franchise record, which deserves a quick aside. Nate Colbert was the Padres first star, joining the team in its inaugural season in 1969. It’s interesting to compare the two stars’ arrival to the Padres. Colbert’s story is subtly on display in his 1969 card:
He’s not wearing a team cap and the photo is cropped above the team logo on the shirt. In the age before photoshop Topps would have its photographers take this type of picture for players that were not tentpole stars of their teams, and thus likely to be traded or released before the baseball cards were printed. It made it easy to switch the team name on the baseball card without the need for a new photo. Indeed Colbert entered MLB in 1964 as an amateur free agent (there was no MLB draft until 1965) and turned down offers from the majority of the league to sign with his home town St. Louis Cardinals to follow in the footsteps of Stan Musial, his childhood baseball idol. But after only a season the Cardinals left him unprotected during the 1965 Rule 5 draft and the Houston Astros selected him. His dreams of playing for his hometown team were dashed. He was blocked from playing time by Astros All-Star first baseman Rusty Staub. After only 60 at bats across three seasons with Houston, the Astros left Colbert unprotected in the 1968 expansion draft and the San Diego Padres selected him with the 18th pick.
Colbert arrived in San Diego entirely by forces out of his control. But he was an immediate force for the team. On September 8th of 1969 the Padres faced Colbert’s previous team the Astros, and Colbert slugged his 19th and 20th home runs of the season passing teammate Ollie Brown for the team lead. And Colbert was the Padres all-time home run leader ever since. In 1972 Colbert drove in 111 runs for a Padres team that only scored a total of 488 runs. His RBI totaled 22.75% of the teams entire run scoring output, a major league record. He was a heliocentric star for the early Padres rosters which were otherwise largely bereft of talent. Colbert was an all-star three times for the Padres. But injuries cut his career short. He was out of the league by age 31.
Manny Machado arrived to the Padres entirely of his own agency, electing to take an 11-year $350 million free-agent contract to play in San Diego, the richest contract the team had ever offered. He hit his 164th home run with the team in his age 32 season on a star-laden roster in the midst of a playoff hunt. Colbert and Machado bookend the long arc of Padres baseball. Machado’s 164th home run was a passing of the torch not just between two players, but between two eras. Eras that couldn’t be more different.
The Padres would add on after Machado’s historic home run and led 7-3 during the highest stress moment of the game. With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the 7th Jason Adam was brought in to relieve Tanner Scott and faced Julio Rodriguez. On a 2-2 pitch Adam got Rodriguez out in front of a changeup:
Bogaerts fielded that ball to the third base side and made a lightning quick cross-body throw perfectly on target to Jake Cronenworth who was able to easily catch it in rhythm and get some zip on his throw to first to beat the very speedy Rodriguez for the inning ending double play preserving the 7-3 lead and eventual Padres victory. Major league shortstops make this play look routine, but it’s very hard objectively. Non-shortstops cannot easily make this play. This is why shortstop is a prestige position. Keep this play in mind as we move to game two.
Game two had a very clear key moment. Michael King was on the mound with runners on first and second and one out. Julio Rodriguez was up again, and once again rolled over a changeup:
The Mariners would challenge the out call at second and all runners would be called safe. Jake Cronenworth was charged with an error for dropping the throw. But on the slow-mo replay it’s easy to see there’s more to it than just a bobble:
That’s a very poor throw from Bogaerts, it’s low and pulls Cronenworth away from the play. Cronenworth is cognizant of the speed of Rodriguez and tries to field the poor throw and turn to make the double play in one motion, and in the process doesn’t get a good grip on the ball with his glove. Scoring convention forces a binary choice of which fielder gets the error. This was multifactorial. Cronenworth does need to catch that ball. But part of his error was undoubtedly trying to preserve the double play on a poorly thrown ball from Bogaerts. Bogaerts can do much better. Indeed he did much better the night before on a carbon copy play. While this was a physical mistake, this is something Bogaerts likely can improve on simply by making it a focal point of his fielding work. He has years of experience playing competent shortstop, and earlier in his career probably makes this play in his sleep. But he’s been a second baseman all year until the past week. There’s a bit of rust even for someone with 10 years of experience at the position earlier in life. That muscle memory can come back. This is fixable. And that’s an imperative before the postseason, especially as there is no word of an imminent Ha-Seong Kim return. After the error the inning would spiral with the Mariners scoring three runs.
Brian Woo was on the hill for the Mariners and was spectacular. He pitched a perfect game through six innings. Fernando Tatis Jr. came up with one out in the top of the 7th:
This is not a garden variety homerun. This was 115.6 MPH off the bat. That’s harder than any ball Tatis hit last season. The Padres would rally for another run, chasing Woo from the game. In the bottom of the 7th in a now close 5-2 game Tatis would again demonstrate rare defensive talent:
Since his return from the IL it’s been clear Tatis is still playing through pain and is not fully healthy. We had wondered why Tatis would return if he’s not fully healthy, and this play is probably the answer: He may not be fully healthy, but he’s healthy enough to be a difference maker. He’s playing through pain but it’s not keeping him from reaching the elite levels that only a handful of players in the league are capable of. His femoral stress reaction is not going to heal during the season. But he will have three months to do nothing but rest in the offseason.
The Mariners would maintain their 5-2 lead to secure the series split. This was a bit disappointing especially as the key play in game 2 was a defensive gaff. But a road split against a good team with elite pitching is also not the worst outcome.
San Francisco
In Friday’s opener against San Francisco Luis Arraez would lead off the game with a single. Fernando Tatis Jr. followed:
This was 109.6 MPH off the bat and went 433 feet off of the preeminent sinkerball pitcher in the league Logan Webb. The Padres would go on to score four runs off Webb and limited him only four innings of work.
Dylan Cease started the game for the Padres. Cease hadn’t pitched well against the Giants in their last matchup on September 7th, and had been showing some concerning signs including a drop in his average fastball velocity to 96.3 MPH, well below his season average of 96.9. There was never a satisfactory explanation put forth for the drop in velo and that always raises the specter of late season fatigue. But he was back on track this game. Rob Friedman highlighted Cease’s 3rd inning work in which he struck out the side:
Courtesy: @PitchingNinja
The 4-seamer to strike out Mike Yastrzemski was 98.3 MPH, the fastest pitch Cease threw all night. Elite velocity. His average fastball velo was up to 97.1 MPH and his slider and knuckle curve both had an absurd 57% whiff rate on the night. He went six innings striking out 10 and didn’t allow a run. Interestingly Cease’s sweeper had a whiff rate of zero because Cease threw five sweepers all night and didn’t get a single swing from the Giants hitters. You can see why above. The final strikeout of the 3rd inning was a knee-buckling sweeper to Heliot Ramos. It’s extremely hard for a hitter to swing at a pitch that well executed because out of the hand it looks identical to a fastball heading high and out of the zone, just as your brain registers it as a ball it breaks back to hit the outside corner. You’re frozen looking at strike three.
Cease was every bit the ace Friday night. This is why the Padres were willing to trade the second most valuable player they got from the Yankees (Drew Thorpe) in the Juan Soto trade for him. But Cease has been enigmatic. He’s had several starts where his velocity and command were not there. And there hasn’t been any clear cause for the inconsistency. A start like Friday’s implies late season fatigue is not the explanation, which is good. But we hope that Cease has a better understanding of why several recent starts haven’t been nearly as sharp.
The Padres led 4-0 in the top of the ninth when an interesting move was made. Jurickson Profar singled and Brandon Lockridge was called in to pinch run. Lockridge was obtained from the Yankees in exchange for Enyel De Los Santos in a trade earlier this season. Lockridge is a 27 year old with a career .764 OPS across six minor league seasons. That’s not the profile of a true major league prospect. But Lockridge is a curious case because he has previously been given a scouting grade of 80 for speed. That’s the highest mark possible and implies the player will be among the top 1% in the league for that tool. This is what Lockridge did on the first pitch of major league action of his career:
This was not a typical stolen base. This was stolen off Patrick Bailey. Here are Patrick Bailey’s Statcast metrics:
Bailey is in the 100th percentile for pop time and the 98th percentile for throwing runners out. That’s the best combination in all of major league baseball. He got a 99 MPH fastball in the strike zone, the best possible pitch for a catcher to receive when trying to throw out a baserunner. Bailey made a really good throw to second. Lockridge just flat out beat it. On the first major league pitch Lockridge ever saw he stole a base with probably the highest degree of difficulty possible. This is as small as sample sizes get, but that’s clearly a major league quality tool. Lockridge has a good defensive profile in the outfield. He’s not a prospect per se, he likely doesn’t have a path to being a starting major league outfielder. But there is a place for players like him on certain rosters. The end of the bench on teams that are competing to win now. He probably won’t make a postseason roster, but you can see why it wouldn’t be crazy to consider it. There are only 12 games left in the season which is not a lot of proving time. But the first glimpse of Lockridge suggests the Padres might have gotten some positive value in return for Enyel De Los Santos, and that is pretty crazy.
After Lockridge’s stolen base Manny Machado would drive him in to stretch the Padres lead to 5-0 allowing Robert Suarez the night off. Jeremiah Estrada pitched a clean 9th to seal the win.
Saturday’s game two saw Joe Musgrove take the mound after his last very bizarre start against the Giants in which he was perfect through the first three innings before giving up six runs in the 4th inning, with five of those runs coming on only six pitches. We wrote at the time:
Giving up six runs in an inning is catastrophic, but this wasn’t an ineffective pitcher getting shelled. Musgrove was very sharp early. There was a shift in the fourth inning. One that’s hard to understand. But it wouldn’t surprise us if Musgrove were effective in his next outing. His stuff looks back. Despite the bad results.
His stuff was certainly back on Saturday once again:
The sweeper in particular graded out two standard deviations above the mean and had a laughable 75% whiff rate. You can get an idea why by looking at the measured pitch shape above, the sweeper had almost 18 inches of horizontal break. But you can really tell why it’s an effective pitch by watching it. Here’s a look at one of his best sweepers of the night.
Courtesy: @PitchingNinja
Musgrove sequenced this at bat well:
He showed Chapman his fastball up and out of the zone the pitch before, then threw the sweeper starting it on a slightly lower plane. Halfway to the plate Matt Chapman sees a fastball and starts his swing:
The sweeper then dives 18 inches off the plate and half foot down and becomes unhittable:
This is Musgrove’s game. His fastball is good enough to play, but it often serves as a setup pitch for his elite breaking pitches. His fastball velocity averaged 93.4 MPH Saturday, a half MPH faster than his season average, and faster than his 2023 average of 93.1 MPH. He struck out eight across six shutout innings and didn’t walk a batter. He looked like himself.
It really seems like the disastrous fourth inning of his last outing was an anomaly. The game slipped into a darker dimension briefly and Musgrove emerged bewildered, and with an inflated ERA. It’s also possible that something truly was off in that inning, and Musgrove’s been able to make an adjustment.
The Padres offense clicked and put up eight runs. The most interesting part of the scoring outburst was the lineup which saw Jackson Merrill moved up to hit fifth behind Manny Machado, and Jake Cronenworth moved into the seventh spot. Merrill appears ready for this promotion to a higher priority spot in the order. He responded with two doubles, the second of which drove in two runs and showcased one of Merrill’s elite traits:
This is a good splitter from Jordan Hicks that sits right on the low outside corner. This came on a 1-0 count. This is a pitch that a pure TTO approach hitter lays off. It’s a pitcher’s pitch. But Merrill has absolutely elite plate coverage:
The school of thought that presumes hitters shouldn’t swing at these pitches doesn’t consider a hitter like Merrill. He can barrel up pitches most hitters can’t.
The Padres cruised to an 8-0 win, shutting out the Giants on back to back nights.
Game three saw a much closer contest. The Padres gave Fernando Tatis a rest with David Peralta starting in right field in his stead. Martin Perez pitched well and the game was tied 1-1 entering the eighth inning. The Giants brought in Tyler Rogers, he of the ridiculous submarine wind up:
Rogers regularly bamboozles major league hitters including this unfortunate snapshot from earlier in the season:
The Padres elected to pinch hit with Fernando Tatis Jr off the bench. Here is the first pitch Tatis saw from Rogers:
That was 103.4 MPH off the bat on an 81 MPH sinker, an exit velocity made possible by a blistering 80.9 MPH bat speed. Tatis wasn’t a bit phased by Rogers byzantine mechanics. He was ready for the call off the bench and executed.
We’re hard wired to see patterns everywhere we look, and it’s easy to note the Padres record without Tatis is quite good. It’s harder to keep in mind that nothing is monocausal, and the Padres good record without Tatis is despite his absence not because of it. His return raises the ceiling for the Padres.
The Padres held the 2-1 lead into the ninth and brought in Robert Suarez to try for the save. By now the league understands the scouting report against Suarez: very little sequencing, almost all fastballs away. This understanding appeared to be key for Parker Meadows when he got to Suarez for a ninth inning grand slam in the final game of the Tigers series earlier this month. In that at bat we noted Meadows saw six straight fastballs on the outer half, and was able to put a good enough swing on the sixth one to get it over the wall for an opposite field home run. Hitters are gearing up for this from Suarez. He just doesn’t sequence pitches very much. In his approach to the first batter he faced Sunday, Heliot Ramos, he did mix in one changeup on the second pitch of the at bat. But the changeup was an uncompetitive pitch way down and outside and Ramos spit on it. After that it was nothing but fastballs away/on the outer half. Here’s the entire sequence, note the swings Ramos puts on the fastballs he sees:
After the changeup he got five straight fastballs and put really good swings on two foul balls to the right side that he just missed. On the final pitch he hit another ball to the right side but squared it up and launched the first ‘splash hit’ from a right handed hitter into McCovey Cove. Ramos was following the Meadows blueprint, but the difference is Ramos is a power hitter with terrific bat speed, a former first round pick who’s putting it all together. Meadows’ home run was a wall scraper with an exit velocity of 98 MPH that was 2.5 MPH slower than Suarez’ pitch. Ramos hit the ball 103.8 MPH which is about as hard as an opposite field ball is going to be hit. This is a problem. Suarez did stay in the game to record the three outs to send it to extras, but it’s worrisome that another high leverage at bat saw the same sequence (or lack thereof) to a power hitter that appeared to be locked in on taking the fastball to opposite field.
The Padres would rally in the 10th to plate two runs and would win after Adrian Morejon allowed only the Manfred Man to score to secure a 4-3 win and a series sweep.
Momentum
The Padres are playing well, they are 8-4 in September. The sweep in San Francisco put them in first place in the Wild Card race, 3.5 games ahead of the Braves and Mets with 12 games left to play. There’s an old school idea that teams with ‘momentum’ in September tend to roll through the playoffs to win it all. Last week baseball analytics maven Bill James called that idea into question:
One way to think about teams that are playing well in September is that it is the momentum of winning that carries over into the postseason. And this is what James is questioning. But if you’ve watched the Padres all season you understand that momentum is not the driving force behind their recent success. They’ve materially improved the talent on their roster in September. The virtuoso displays from Tatis and Musgrove in particular make clear what the Padres have been playing without for most of the season. The reason to think the Padres might be well situated to perform down the stretch into the postseason is not so much that “an object in motion tends to stay in motion”, it’s that they are seeing the return of game changers in September. Not a lot of teams can say the same. There isn’t a large corpus of data on what to expect from teams like this because this is very rare.
We’re seeing the Padres final form. An extremely deep lineup. A defense full of athletes. An enviable starting rotation. A strong bullpen. And a record that reflects that:
This has been an unusual, possibly unique season for the Padres. The final two weeks of the regular season are here. And despite so much success, nothing has been settled. Every game still matters. We’re in the last mile.
It’s time to keep the faith.
So many little things. Lots of reasons that the Padres are better but one is that they are doing the marginal things. From roster decisions, to context appropriate hitting approaches, etc. Seems like the decision-making and maybe (hopeful wishing?) analytical tools / data driving those decisions.
All season have had the “and if Darvish comes back, and King stays good, and Cease stays good and Musgrove comes back and is good again…” and that might be happening. And was fearful that Tatis would be rusty. His first six games, 5 starts, he had a wRC+ of 38. Over the next six, 5 starts, it is 235.
Also, FO not messing around. Campusano was not hitting to offset his defense (or his throwing Cease’s 200th K into the stands, though recovered). Being a fleet defender is nice but Lockridge can steal. AJ’s moves to bolster the bullpen look amazing. Estrada and Morejon 4th and 5th deep with others lurking.
Decades of Padres fandom have taught
me to be very anxious but, after a brief wobble, they seemed to have recovered their second half mojo.
Couple more against the Astros but