Good morning,

The Padres have every intention of bolstering their offense via trade this month.

They believe they can procure at least one bat to add much-needed depth to their lineup. They might end up adding a catcher from the outside, though they will first attempt to do so with an internal option.

But virtually everyone in the organization agrees that whatever moves they make will only matter if the players they are already paying at the top of the lineup start producing more consistently.

Last night provided at least a skeleton of an outline of what that looks like.

You can read in my game story (here) about the home runs hit by Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. and the RBI double by Xander Bogaerts that helped lift the Padres to a 4-3 victory over the Diamondbacks.

That story focused largely on the back end of the bullpen coming through once again. And we will discuss that more later.

But let’s first talk about the potential (or the tease) we saw from the offense last night.

Foremost, Tatis ended a stretch of 52 at-bats without a home run. Machado also homering gave the Padres multiple home runs in a game for just the 15th time this season. It was just the second time Tatis and Machado homered in the same game in 2025.

The Padres are 13-2 when they homer more than once this season. Their 15 times doing so are tied for last in the major leagues with the Royals and Pirates.

Since 2019, the Padres are 17-5 when Machado and Tatis homer in the same game. They have done so just twice this season despite having started 91 games together, one fewer than last season and more than they did in 2019 or ‘20.

Yesterday was just the fifth time Bogaerts, Machado and Tatis have each driven in at least one run in a game this season. The Padres are 4-1 in those games, and the loss was by a score of 8-7.

The Padres had 13 hits yesterday, eight of them along with two walks contributing to getting Diamondbacks starter Eduardo Rodriguez out of the game with no outs in the fifth inning.

“It was a great approach we had as a team,” said Machado, who was  3-for-5. “We stuck to it. We made him work and (got) into that bullpen pretty early. So we’ve got to continue doing that.”

There have been encouraging signs in other games or even in consecutive games, only to have the Padres revert to being the offensive impatience and impotence.

And they did go just 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position yesterday, leaving a man at third base in three innings and one at second in two others.

“Still gotta figure out a way to add on when we get the opportunities,” manager Mike Shildt said.

But 13 hits — three of them extra-base hits by players the Padres need to get more extra-base hits — and five walks made for more baserunners than the Padres had in any game in exactly a month.

“It’s too early to tell,” Machado said when asked about the positive signs. “But yeah, I mean, for sure. We want to win, we’ve all got to string some good at-bats together as a group. So hopefully we continue doing it as a group and bring some other guys to do it.”

Important four

Shildt has called them the Four Horsemen. Gavin Sheets last night called them the Big Four.

Relief pitchers Jason Adam, Jeremiah Estrada, Adrian Morejón and Robert Suarez should probably be referred to as the Padres’ life preservers.

The Padres are 14-5 when all four  of them pitch this season.

And there is a definite trend emerging this month.

The Padres have won every other game they have played in July, alternating wins and losses for nine games. And in the past four victories, the only relievers to have pitched are Adam, Estrada, Morejón and Suarez. None of them have pitched in the losses.

Adam allowed a run last night, the first any of the four have allowed this month.

Here is the problem for the Padres: Adam will almost certainly not be available tonight after throwing 24 pitches in his MLB-leading 46th games last night, and Shildt will likely want to stay away from Estrada and Morejón based on their workloads.

And with the Padres having not scored more than four runs in any of their past eight games and facing Phillies left-hander Ranger Suárez (7-2, 1.99) tonight, they will likely need to rely on some of their lower-leverage relievers if they are fortunate enough to have a lead later in the game.

To that end, Shildt noted, “We’re good in close games. We do a lot of things well that allow you to win games in total. … But also, it’s legal to win 7-3 or 8-2.”

The man

Adam and Suarez are headed to the All-Star game after Sunday’s game.

Maybe another spot will open on the National League’s pitching staff and the Padres’ best reliever can get on that flight too.

“Pitched like an All-Star tonight,” Shildt said. “Tell you that much.”

It is difficult to consider a middle reliever as having been snubbed. And Suarez’s 27 saves and Adam’s 1.74 ERA in his abundant appearances say they should be going.

But Morejón has been on another level most of the season.

His 1⅔ innings last night ran his scoreless streak to a career-high 14⅓ innings over his past 14 games. He has not allowed an earned run in 24 games (22⅔ innings).

His .172 batting average allowed is eight-best in NL. His 1.71 ERA ranks seventh, one spot ahead of Adam.

Morejón’s 28 inherited runners are fourth most in the NL, and his 85.7% rate of stranding those inherited runners is fourth best. He ranks 16th with 12 holds. His 13.7 pitches per inning are fourth fewest.

He has over his past nine appearances pitched in every inning from the fourth through the 10th.

Yesterday, he stranded two runners by getting the final two outs in the fifth. Then the Padres scored twice to go up 4-2 before he went back out and worked a scoreless sixth inning. With that, Morejón got his seventh win, most among MLB relievers.

Dad to the rescue

So often when Tatis starts to find his way out of a slump — as he appears to be doing on this homestand, going 8-for-25 with a double, a triple and a home run — we find out he had a certain visitor.

“Just working,” Tatis said yesterday. “Better approach at the plate, working with the hitting coaches, working with my pops. He was here. So I’m just trying to find the best way.”

The elder Tatis, a former major leaguer who has always been his son’s biggest influence, harshest critic and most trusted teacher, arrived in San Diego at the start of the homestand.

“It’s a daily conversation,” Tatis said without elaborating on their work together over the past week. “Seeing stuff, feeling the game, seeing how I’m being pitched and better adjustments mechanically.”

Cuts both ways

Tatis would have needed to hit the ball a foot farther in his final at-bat last night to have his first two-homer game since April 14.

Instead, his 400-foot fly ball to center field was caught at the top of the wall by Jake McCarthy.

Jake McCarthy robs Fernando Tatis Jr.’s bid for his second homer of the night pic.twitter.com/dAAUc52MO0

— MLB (@MLB) July 11, 2025

Tatis had leaped to bring back a would-be home run by Arizona’s Josh Naylor two nights earlier.

“It’s part of the game,” Tatis said of the payback. “There’s a saying in Spanish — Al que a hierro mata a hierro muere. It’s like, I don’t know how really to translate it in English, but it’s part of the game. They play good defense, and that’s what happens.”

The saying is literally translated, “He who kills by the sword dies by the sword.”

Too much

Unlike Tatis’ C’est la vie take on his would-be homer, Bogaerts was not placated by the fact he got a big hit after having one not go his way.

His double in the fifth inning, to the left field gap at 101 mph, gave the Padres are 4-2 lead. But after the game he was still lamenting his 107 mph line drive that was caught in left field and ended the first inning with runners at the corners.

Bogaerts has hit .373 with a 1.000 OPS over his past 19 games, but his double last night was his first extra-base hit in nine games and first RBI in 10 games.

“Still, like a lot of hard outs,” Bogaerts said last night. “What’s weird is my hard outs, my line drives, my barrels, they’re outs with guys in scoring position.”

His double last night actually scored Sheets from first base, so Bogaerts remains hitless in his past 13 at-bats with runners in scoring position. Both of his outs in the circumstance last night were hard hits (95 mph or harder) and five of his 13 outs with runners in scoring position since June 23 have been put in play at 95 mph or harder.

In all this season, Bogaerts is batting .485 on balls put in play at 100 mph or harder. That is 87 points below the league average. His .434 average on hard-hit balls is 48 points below the league average.

Merrill’s madness

Jackson Merrill walked three times last night. It was the second time he has done so in the past nine games and the second time he has done so in his 209 career starts.

He seemed almost angry about it each time he tossed his bat and began the jog to first base after taking a fourth ball. And the way he talked about his night afterward confirmed he wasn’t thrilled.

“It’s a positive,” Merrill said. “I’m not gonna tell you I felt great. I didn’t. I’m still (trying to) find comfortability in the box and just kind of resetting.”

Merrill had not reached base in 16 plate appearances before his fourth-inning walk last night. He struck out in the second inning before finishing his night with the three walks and is now batting .075 (3-for-40) over the past 11 games.

“Walks are good, but I’m a f—ing hitter, dude,” he said. “I want to hit. It’s annoying when you are in the box and you know your ability is hitting. The thing I’m best at in this game is hitting. So when you’re not doing it, it frustrates you.”

Merrill knew it was good to “slow it down and see pitches.” But he noted he wished he could have driven in the runners who were on base the final two times he came up.

“I want to get those guys home or get them over,” he said. “I want to do something productive with my bat. But walking, just passing the baton, it helps too.”

It did in the fourth inning when Merrill went to third on a single by Jose Iglesias and scored the game-tying run on Jake Cronenworth’s grounder to first base.

Left is right

All three of Sheets’ singles last night came against the left-handed Rodriguez. It was Sheets’ first game ever with three hits against left-handed pitching.

Four of his five games with two hits against left-handers have come in the past five weeks.

He has 17 hits in his past 40 at-bats (.425) against lefties and is batting .289 against them this season. That is 121 points higher than his average against them in his first four seasons.

We have talked a lot about his changes at the plate. Most recently, I wrote (here) about his improved consistency staying “closed” against lefties.

Chance blown

The Padres had a chance to not only separate themselves from the National League West’s fourth playoff contender but possibly push them closer to no longer being a contender.

They could have all but decided things for the Diamondbacks in terms of making up their minds about selling off some parts. And even if an Arizona-San Diego swap is unlikely, the Diamondbacks moving quality players would mean more availability in what is now a seller’s market.

With a split in the series, the Diamondbacks might have remained close enough to a wild-card spot to possibly be enticed to buy at the deadline.

They are two games below .500 and five games out of the final National League playoff spot. But they have one of MLB’s top offenses and might be a couple bullpen arms away from being a true contender.

Tidbits

• Catcher Martín Maldonado threw out Randall Grichuk on the back end of a double steal attempt to help Morejón in the sixth inning. Shildt made a point to say how big the play was. Maldonado also went 0-for-3 and is batting .175 on the season. Indications from within the organization continue to point to catcher Luis Campusano being called up from Triple-A soon, though it might not happen until after the All-Star break.
• You can read (here) what would seem to be encouraging news about Michael King in a story I posted shortly before last night’s game.
• Rookie Ryan Bergert will come off the injured list to start for the Padres tonight. The final two pitching matchups of the series against the Phillies are intriguing. Yu Darvish will make his second start of the season tomorrow against Zack Wheeler (9-3, 2.17), and Nick Pivetta (9-2, 3.07) will face Cristopher Sánchez (7-2, 2.59) on Sunday.
• Robert Suarez threw three changeups among his 13 pitches yesterday. The first two were balls. The last one was down enough and away enough that it got Naylor to ground out to end the game.  Suarez, whose changeups for a time had generally been balls or left up in the zone to be hit hard, had thrown just four changeups among his previous 71 pitches.
• Machado’s home run had a launch angle of 22 degrees and reached a top height of just 60 feet off the ground. It was his 97th homer hit that low since 2015, the year StatCast began tracking launch angle. Giancarlo Stanton (104) is the only player with more home runs at 22 degrees or lower. The next closest player is the retired Nelson Cruz (69).
• Tatis’ 52 at-bats without a home run before last night was his third drought at least that long this season. He had three that long over his first five seasons.
• Iglesias had gone 16 starts without a multi-hit game before going 2-for-4 last night. Iglesias, who is batting .229, had eight multi-hit games in his first 28 starts for the Padres.

All right, that’s it for me.

No newsletter the next two days. We will have our usual coverage on our Padres page, but I have a couple things to take care of before the two-week road trip that begins with a red eye to Atlanta on Sunday night. And staying up until almost dawn writing the newsletter cuts down on the business hours I am awake before I have to be at the ballpark.

So the next Padres Daily will be in your inbox Monday morning.

Talk to you then.