Padres Daily: Offense struggling, except the catchers and Xander Bogaerts

Good morning from Denver,

The plate appearances that began the first two innings were either going to portend a big night for the Padres or signal the beginning of the end.

It was the latter.

You can read in my game story (here) about the Padres' continued offensive impotence in last night's 8-3 loss to the Rockies.

"This game was not a Coors Field off the wall …" Walker Buehler surmised afterward.

No, it wasn't. Before doubling their way to a comfortable lead, the Rockies really built all the lead they would need with some seeing-eye hits.

And for the second straight game here, the Padres struggled to do anything. They finished with seven hits, one more than the previous game, which they won 1-0 on a fortuitous sequence of events that culminated in a bases-loaded walk.

Five of the Padres' hits last night came from Luis Campusano, who hit a home run and two doubles, and Xander Bogaerts, who singled twice.

First, let it be understood that the Padres were not facing another of what has been a seemingly constant stream of pitchers with incredible stuff.

Tomoyuki Sugano is a good pitcher who was much better in Japan. He had a 4.64 ERA in 30 starts for the Orioles last season and in his three starts against teams other than the Padres this season has allowed seven runs in 14⅔ innings (4.30 ERA).

We have talked before here about the metric Stuff+, which purports to measure the characteristics of a pitch (spin, velocity, movement) that make it effective.

There were, as of yesterday, 115 pitchers who had thrown 20 innings this season. Of those, the Padres have already faced 12 of the top 43 in Stuff+. Sugano entered last night's game ranked 114th.

He allowed one run in 5⅔ innings.

There was no at-bat more indicative of how things went for the Padres last night than Gavin Sheets' nine-pitch effort that ended with the first out of the second inning.

Unlike Ramón Laureano's nine-pitch walk that began the game and led to the Padres going up 1-0, Sheets ended a strong showing by swinging at what would have been ball four and hitting a slow roller to third base for an out.

"We had competitive at-bats and put together long ones," Sheets said. "We had a good game plan against him."

The Padres did do a good job of mostly not chasing Sugano's splitter down out of the zone. But they reverted to following good at-bats with not-so-good ones and not finishing at-bats, similar to what they did much of the season's first week.

So now, after a run of nearly two weeks in which they scored fewer than three runs just once in 12 games, they are struggling to put anything together.

The positive for the Padres was that Sugano was at 28 pitches after Sheets made the first out of the second inning.

But Campusano's two-out double in the second and Bogaerts' one-out single in the fourth were the Padres' only hits over four-plus innings until Manny Machado and Bogaerts hit back-to-back two-out singles in the sixth to get Sugano out of the game.

Sugano threw 101 pitches. The Padres really did put together some solid at-bats.

So on one hand, it might be considered encouraging that the offense mostly continued to look like a group with a plan.

On the other hand …

"They were OK," manager Craig Stammen said when pressed on the quality of last night’s at-bats. "I mean, in the end, you can stay stubborn, but you've got to to finish them off. And we just haven’t been able to finish off at-bats here lately. Today, especially, we felt like we were getting into good counts. We were laying off the splitter down a little bit but just weren’t able to finish those at-bats with pitches that we thought we could do some damage on."

That is especially disappointing when you consider how excited the Padres were to get here and how well so many of them have done here.

"It’s part of the season," Stammen said. "You’re not going to score 10 runs every game, and you've just got to manage those ups and downs. Right now, I don’t think our guys are seeing the ball really well. We’ll get them right, and eventually they’ll start clicking."

Insurance policy

The Padres lost a game but gained a starting pitcher.

Before I had my first cup of coffee yesterday, A.J. Preller had swung a deal.

(Granted, that wasn't as impressive as some of his early morning trades and signings since I woke up at 10:30 yesterday).

Anyway, the Padres signed Lucas Giolito to bolster their beleaguered rotation.

You can read about Giolito and the plan for when he will join the team in my story (here).

Catching on

Padres catchers combined to bat .219 with a .613 OPS last season. Both numbers ranked 24th among all catcher groups. Their on-base percentage (.269) ranked 29th, and their slugging percentage (.344) was 24th.

For much of 2025, before Fermin was acquired at the trade deadline, those rankings were even lower. The ninth spot in the order, where Elias Díaz and Martín Maldonado usually batted, was a void almost every game.

So far this season, Fermin and Campusano are making the eighth or ninth spot an actual weapon.

Their combined batting average (.264) ranks 11th, their OBP (.357) fifth, their slugging percentage (.472) eighth and their OPS (.829) fifth.

A single and a walk by Fermin comprised the catchers' only offensive contributions through the season's six games. Since then, they have at least one hit in 12 of the Padres 18 games and have reached base at least once in all but three of those 18 games.

Campusano is the one really driving the numbers, as he has overcome an 0-for-6 start to rank among MLB’s top offensive catchers. Among catchers with at least 35 plate appearances, Campusano ranks fourth in average (.333), 10th in OBP (.385), fourth in slugging percentage (.667) and fifth in OPS (1.051).

Fermin is batting .194/.333/.278 but is 6-for-22 (.273) with three doubles and five walks and has been hit by two pitches over his past 30 plate appearances.

"I think it has already made a difference this year, just those guys taking quality at-bats and being someone that the pitcher really has to game plan for and has to be careful with," Stammen said. "… Campy has had a couple big hits that have been almost game-saving hits. And we know Freddy takes quality at-bats every night. So those guys at the bottom of our lineup, lengthening our lineup … it’s going to be really good."

Tidbits

• I wrote (here) yesterday about the pending official announcement of the Padres' ownership change and how some of the new owners will be the same as the old owners. Also in that story is some perspective on how valuable the Padres have become, as I note that José E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, are paying almost as much for about 40% of the Padres as the group that bought the Rays in September paid for that entire team.
• The Padres had won 11 straight games in which they scored first. They are now 11-2 in such games this season.
• Last night was Campusano's first three-hit game since 2024 and the 11th of his career. It was his first career game with three extra-base hits. It was his second game with multiple extra-base hits this season. Sheets is the only Padres player with more (three) games with more than one extra-base hit this season.
• Nick Castellanos has one hit in his past 25 at-bats and his batting .146/.196/.208 in 51 plate appearances. Meanwhile, Ty France is 6-for-16 with a double and a home run and several hard-hit outs over the past four games in which he has a plate appearance. France is also the Padres' best defensive first baseman.
• Bogaerts is batting .364/.444/.545 over his past 15 games and has assumed the team lead with a .276 average and .344 on-base percentage. His .746 OPS trails only Laureano (.768).
• Laureano was batting .288 with an .888 OPS through Saturday. He is 0-for-12 with eight strikeouts and one walk in three games since.
• Coors Field is where scoreless streaks die. So it was that Wandy Peralta's stretch of six innings without allowing a run ended last night. So did the streak of 18⅔ scoreless innings by Padres' starting pitchers.

All right, that's it for me. Early game (12:10 p.m. PT) and then a flight to Mexico City.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 6:58 AM.