Padres Daily: Not (early) enough; wild NL West; Canning's debut

Good morning,

From so much going right to so much going wrong.

That is the story of the Padres' season so far.

Last night's game - and actually the past four games - is what you had to be concerned about when the Padres were the ones finding a way to punch through just enough runs late time after time for most of a three-week span in April.

Two of the first three hits against Padres starter Michael King last night were bunts. The fourth hit was a single blooped off the end of Miguel Vargas' bat into right field to drive in the game's first two runs in the sixth inning.

That was more than enough for the White Sox.

Because a 4-0 loss was mostly on the Padres offense.

King did not do what Germán Márquez did the night before and allow six runs in the second inning.

King, albeit fighting his command throughout, got through five innings without allowing a run.

To that point, the Padres offense had four hits and a walk and had twice failed to score after getting a runner in scoring position with one out.

The results are evening out. It is too soon to think the Padres' season will flatten out. But they need to stop this trend.

Scoring earlier would help.

The Padres' 32 runs in the first three innings of games are tied for second fewest in the major leagues. Their 48 runs in the next three innings are better - 16th in the majors. But all together, the 80 runs in the first six innings is the fifth-lowest total.

It sure was fun when it didn't matter that they fell behind.

Over a span of 19 games from April 5 through Monday, the Padres won six of the nine games in which they fell behind by two or more runs.

That is a preposterous rate. We talked here quite a bit about how it was impressive but scary and that it couldn't last.

"It’s not a recipe, and we knew that," Gavin Sheets said. "But we made the most of them. We were doing it and we rode it out. And, you know, we’re just putting too much stress on our starters. Mike threw the ball great tonight. One squib hit, and that can’t be the difference in a game like this. And it’s all of us. It’s one through nine, and we've just got to come out with that same aggression (in) first six innings and put some pressure on them."

Last night's loss was the Padres' fourth in a row. They have trailed by two or more runs in all of them.

And they trailed early enough in each one to allow time for a comeback. But just because a team has shown it is capable of coming back does not mean it always will. In fact, it more often will not over the course of a season. (There have been 219 comeback victories this season and 281 games in which a team has not come back to win. Just 109 of those comebacks are from deficits of two or more runs.)

Last night, the Padres loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth inning, which brought the potential tying run to the plate three times.

"In the ninth we got things going and just couldn’t get the big hit that we’ve been getting," said Sheets, who struck out looking for the first out in that inning. "The at-bats we take in the seventh, eighth and ninth have been really good. Just the first six innings, we haven’t been able to stack on as many, and (then) we’re trying to do it against the best guys. And obviously that’s not a recipe for success. Just getting back to getting on top early and having a little aggressive attitude the first six innings."

You can read in my game story (here) about how last night went down.

At the end of that story is this quote from Craig Stammen:

"We’re not going to ride the roller coaster of the highs of winning and the roller coaster of the lows of losing. That’s just not how this team is built. That’s not how they go about their daily business. They’re going to keep working every day. They’re going to keep showing up, and eventually it’s going to turn. We’re going to play a good baseball game tomorrow. Whether we win or lose, I don’t know, but we’re going to play our best and see what happens."

I'm sure pretty much everyone gets the sentiment.

Things is, we don't even know what the Padres' best is yet.

But it has to be better than this.

Last night saw the 14th quality start thrown against the Padres. They are not doing enough to get starting pitchers out of the game. They had chances last night but went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.

Much like in the season's first week, the good at-bats were not stacked.

"In the end, like, we’ve got to figure out a way to get the job done, and we’re just not able to do that when it matters," Stammen said. "And while there are some good at-bats in there, there are some not so good at-bats in between also, and we’ve got to figure out a way to stick nine good ones together throughout the entire lineup - no matter how they’re feeling at the plate, be able to make that pitcher work a little harder."

Wild West

The Padres have lost four straight. So have the Dodgers. The Giants have lost five in a row. The Diamondbacks and Rockies have lost three straight.

According to OptaSTATS, this is the first time in MLB history every team in a division has been on a losing streak of at least three games at the end of a given day.

Canning time

Griffin Canning was always scheduled to make a start today - either in Triple-A or the major leagues.

It is going to be for the Padres in the finale of their series against the White Sox.

Jeff Sanders spoke with Canning yesterday and wrote (here) about his status as he returns from an Achilles injury just more than 10 months ago.

Inserting Canning into the rotation moves Randy Vásquez back to Monday and Walker Buehler to Tuesday, both against the Giants.

What happens after that?

Matt Waldron's next scheduled start is Wednesday. Or Márquez could get another crack.

As we have talked about the past two days, big decisions are coming. It would seem someone is about to be placed on waivers.

But the Padres have begun a stretch of 10 games without a day off and 19 games in 20 days. So they could go with six starters and/or dabble with an opener or piggyback two starters in a game and push back having to determine which pitcher to let go.

Recovered, almost totally

King could have been better. He continues to wrestle with his mechanics and yank his sinker. So he is hardly throwing it, relatively speaking.

"I felt like it was a battle the whole time," King said. "Had to rely on a lot of offspeeds. I didn’t feel like I had the same command, and they ended up getting me at the end. … I have to be able to locate off speed away, and if I don’t, then it’s tough. I felt like I did a decent job mixing up early on, and then spiraled there quickly."

As we addressed, it wasn't like he was getting ripped all over the yard. But it is his job, as one of the Padres' top starters, to find a way through the damage. It is something he has done so well so often.

In fact, it sure looked like King was going to do so last night after surviving a remarkable second inning.

King did not get any swings on the first 15 pitches he threw in the second. That was 11 balls and four called strikes.

He had to that point walked two batters and gotten some help when catcher Luis Campusano threw out Colson Montgomery trying to reach second.

King's 16th pitch of the inning, a 3-1 sinker, was fouled off before the next pitch got a fly ball out and he then struck out the next batter.

King followed with a five-pitch third inning, which ended on a double play, and an eight-pitch fourth that included two strikeouts.

After getting through the fifth on 16 pitches, thanks to another double play grounder, his NL-leading eighth, King gave up the two runs in the sixth and was charged with two more in the seventh.

He did not record an out in the seventh inning, allowing a pair of singles and a double on probably the three most legitimate hits against him.

"Felt good about where his pitch count was and sent him out for the seventh," Stammen said. "But obviously, wasn’t as sharp in that last inning."

Ownership info

The Padres yesterday announced the Seidler family’s agreement to transfer controlling interest in the club to José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones.

I wrote (here) about the couple's plan to partner in running the club, as well as some updates on which owners are staying and who might be joining.

I want to point out two things that were addressed in the article and will be fleshed out more as time goes on.

I have seen a lot of people reading into the way the Premier League club Chelsea is being run and projecting that into how Feliciano and Jones will run the Padres.

First, we don't know how they will run the Padres. But it does seem important to distinguish between Feliciano's ownership stakes in the two clubs.

Clearlake Capital, the private equity firm Feliciano co-founded, owns 62% of Chelsea, and he is one of three governing partners. That is a business investment and, thus, requires Clearlake Capital to make money for the funds it manages.

Feliciano and Jones are buying the Padres. This is a personal investment.

Again, it will be seen how much and how wisely they invest in the Padres. But it is impossible to compare the running of a European soccer league that is a business venture with the running of an MLB team that is a private venture.

The other point that should be cleared up is that the 24% stake in the Padres held by Peter Seidler's trust was part of this transaction. Sheel Seidler, who is the beneficial owner of that stake along with her children, is not part of the new ownership group.

Back at it

In his return from the injured list, Jeremiah Estrada averaged 96.8 mph on 10 fastballs and struck out all three batters he faced on 13 pitches last night.

Estrada, whose velocity had dropped precipitously, was placed on the IL April 10 with what was called elbow tendonitis.

He did make some mechanical adjustments while on his rehab assignment, but he said the main thing probably was that he gained back much of the weight he lost this offseason.

Said Stammen: "That was probably the highlight of the night - him coming in there and being the old Jeremiah Estrada that we remember."

Tidbits

• Last night was the first time the Padres were shut out at Petco Park since May 31. That ended a streak at 69 games, which was the longest active streak in the major leagues and one game shy of the franchise record.
• The Padres did not have an extra-base hit last night for the first time since the season's third game.
• Padres pitchers have walked 25 batters over the past five games, and 10 of those have come around to score.
• Miguel Andujar was 2-for-4. It was his seventh multi-hit game of the season, two off Ramón Laureano's team-leading nine. Laureano has started 28 games, eight more than Andujar.
• Jackson Merrill was 2-for-4 last night and is now 6-for-48 (.125) over his past 12 games. He is batting .210/.277/.336 in 132 plate appearances this season.
• Manny Machado's 12-pitch strikeout in the sixth inning was the longest plate appearance by a Padres player this season. Machado did well to foul off some tough pitches, and he likely contributed to White Sox starter Sean Burke not pitching in the seventh inning. But Machado also fouled off a fastball he could have whalloped and struck out on a pitch outside the zone.
• At least the Padres lost quickly last night. Their games had been taking an average of two hours, 49 minutes to complete, tied for fifth longest in the majors. Last night's game was 2:29, their shortest game since April 21.

All right, that's it for me. Early game (1:10 p.m. PT) and then a flight to San Francisco.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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This story was originally published May 3, 2026 at 6:54 AM.