Padres Daily: No offense, but King is the takeaway; Tatis doing work; Durán's big night

Good morning,

The Padres are going to be an unstoppable machine when they put everything together offensively.

You know, when they do.

We will just let that be for today. We will go ahead and assume the same when (not if) that the Padres are believing in.

And we will move on.

Because we're not going to talk again about an offense stuck in purgatory.

We can't do it every day. We have to take one day off.

If you want a glimpse at how poorly the offense performed once again in last night's 2-1 loss to the Cardinals, you can read my game story (here). In that story, I also focus on circumstances surrounding Masyn Winn's game-winning hit in the seventh inning off Bradgley Rodriguez - a hit that probably doesn't happen if Fernando Tatis Jr. is in right field.

But about Michael King, huh?

If you take the big-picture view and say there is time for the Padres' offense to become what its marquee names suggest it should be, then King continuing to pitch effectively while still searching for the command of his sinker is the big takeaway from last night.

King allowed a run on one hit and walked two over six innings last night. He literally allowed a run on one hit, because the one hit was a solo home run.

King was once again somewhat displeased with a good outing, because he knows it is not what he can be.

"We’re getting there," he said. "It was a little bit better, a little bit more command. It’s still not 100%. … The starting pitcher's job is to give the team a chance to win with whatever you got that day. So yeah, definitely happy about that."

King had thrown just 85 pitches through six innings, but the decision to pull him at that point was made before the game.

Handling King this way at times was something the Padres forecasted before the season. Remember, he threw 75 innings in five starts last season due to the nerve issue near his shoulder and a bone bruise in his knee.

King has already reached 35 innings in his eight starts in 2026. The season is not even a quarter finished.

"His workload over the past three or four starts warranted maybe slightly less workload tonight," Stammen said of the decision spearheaded by the monitoring done by the pitching coaches. "We felt that he kind of cruised through those six innings. Felt like it was a good time to hand it over to the bullpen."

Working on it

Beginning nearly four hours before last night's first pitch, and for more than 30 minutes, Tatis and Manny Machado took turns in the batting cage on the field with only hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. nearby.

Media watching were instructed to not take pictures or video.

There wasn't a lot of talking. Just hitting by the two struggling stars.

And then it became mostly about Tatis.

Machado kept taking his turns in the cage, but only in between offering Tatis animated and at times intense and lengthy feedback. They would sometimes speak in between Tatis' swings. Souza also demonstrated what he was seeing and looking for.

Tatis hardly spoke as he locked in on the two men giving him counsel.

Tatis, you may have heard, has yet to hit a home run this season.

He ranks fifth in the major leagues in hard-hit rate (58.8%). While that is down from first in the majors (at 67.5%) a week ago, it remains a stunning incongruity.

Tatis is 155 plate appearances into the season, which is eight times as long as the average of one home run every 19.3 plate appearances he brought into this season.

He has for weeks been attributing his lack of power to "timing" issues. And at times, it was clear the trio was primarily addressing Tatis' flow forward during his swing. But they synced that with his leg kick at times. There was at times much gesturing about his hands.

The person writing this newsletter won't pretend to be a hitting coach. But by many accounts this is largely about Tatis needing to get "inside" the baseball. Tatis has been early and sort of loopy with his swing, especially lately as he has pounded pitches into the ground.

This was not the first time Tatis has taken part in such an intense batting practice session. But the others had been indoors.

"It's probably better, because less eyes are watching," he said. "But you do want to go out on the field sometimes and just go out there and hit."

In his first at-bat last night Tatis lined a single into left-center field at 112 mph, his first hard-hit line drive since April 28. That was a span of 19 balls in play - 13 grounders, two fly balls and four softer line drives.

"It was smoother," he said of how he felt last night. "It's coming along. It's body movement. It's seeing what feels best and go from there."

Keeping it light

There was one moment where Tatis' concentration was broken.

That was when Machado started laughing after reliever Jason Adam walked onto the field in a T-shirt with cut off sleeves and cut off below the chest, a la Tatis.

"Tati, I want to be just like him," Adam told Annie Heilbrunn. "… I felt strong and free. So I see why he’s got so much power."

Well, yeah, he's working on that.

New backstop

The Padres could not afford to gamble at the catcher position, so Rodolfo Durán is getting his shot.

In the midst of his 11th minor-league season, Durán was called up from Triple-A and was the Padres' catcher last night.

In his MLB debut, he impressed King.

"Duran called a hell of a game," King said. "I was not surprised, but I guess a little shocked, like, having so much composure and maturity during your debut. He definitely carried me through those innings. … Communication with him was great. He sat next to me in between every inning, and we talked about sequences that we just threw, hitters that were about to be up there. And if I shook, he would ask me why, or he would say that was the next pitch that I was going to go to, or he was one pitch ahead or one pitch behind me. … It was just good communication that way to know that he was following along with the scouting report, reading swings very well. We had a very good relationship throughout that game."

The impetus for the move to recall Durán was Luis Campusano going on the 10-day injured list after suffering a fractured toe on his left foot when he fouled a ball off it on Tuesday.

"It was one of those things (where) you could potentially play through depending on pain and tolerance and all that," Stammen said. "(Campusano) is definitely feeling better today than he was yesterday, but we’re just in a little bit of a bind with the catching situation. It’s a different position. You can’t really hide, and you need a couple of them. So I think it’ll be good to be able to get past it in the IL stint and be able to be healthy when he comes back instead of trying to play through something where he’s feeling it."

Part of the thinking for the Padres, too, is that Freddy Fermin has taken a lot of foul tips to various parts of his body, including a half-dozen off his mask that caused the Padres to sit him a few days last month.

I wrote about that and what Fermin said about it in yesterday's newsletter.

"When you have two healthy catchers, you’re OK," Stammen said. "When one of them goes down, then you’re one foul tip away, you're one freak injury away from having a position player have to catch."

Durán will split time with Fermin, likely handing the same pitchers Campusano has.

Generally, a fracture does not need to be 100% healed before a player returns to action. Stammen indicated the minimum time on the IL will likely be sufficient for Campusano.

In the meantime, Durán will be living his dream.

"It feels great," he said. "Twelve years. That's a lot. … Everything happens in your mind (during) 12 years in the minors. You're like, ‘I'm doing the same thing and I'm not going anywhere.' But God has a plan. You just need to keep grinding, keep trusting yourself and not give up. "

MLB moments

Durán was hitless, like every Padres player except Tatis and Miguel Andujar.

But he did have a couple significant moments.

First, he threw out Victor Scott II, a pretty fast runner, trying to steal second base. He got help from a magnificent no-look tag by Xander Bogaerts, but Durán's throw was 86.8 mph, the 11th fastest by a catcher this season.

He also lined a ball to center field at 108 mph that was caught on the track.

"I hit it well," he said. "But now I know in the Petco, you had to hit it harder."

Yes, baseball in downtown San Diego is different than in El Paso.

"Oooh, it would have gone far," Durán said when asked how far his hit would have traveled in the high desert of West Texas. "It was too low (to be a home run). It would have been a hit."

Corresponding move

Musgrove was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL yesterday to make room for Adolfo on the 40-man roster. The move was procedural and does not affect the timing of his return, in that it is retroactive to when his IL stint began in late March.

Stammen was asked specifically yesterday whether a return in the first half of the season was out of the question for Musgrove. His answer was yet another sign of how the Padres are looking at his recovery.

"Honestly, I haven’t thought about that," Stammen said. "You know, I don’t think Joe’s really thought about that either. He’s just focused on getting healthy, doing whatever he needs to do on a daily basis."

I wrote in Tuesday's newsletter about the nebulous rehab plan with Musgrove and Nick Pivetta.

Tidbits

• Stammen said last week that Andujar would play more now that his left hamstring was feeling better. He wasn't kidding. Andujar has played the entirety of seven consecutive games in the past seven days. He played 149 games his rookie season, in 2018. But this is just the fifth time since the start of the ‘19 season that he has started seven straight days.
• Last night was the sixth time the Padres' bullpen has blown a lead. It happened 16 times last season.
• Wandy Peralta was booed after issuing his second one-out walk in the eighth inning. He was then visited by pitching coach Ruben Niebla. Three pitches later, he was out of the inning on a double play. Peralta threw 14 pitches in the inning, just four of them strikes.
• Jackson Merrill's hitting streak ended after five games, but he walked for the second consecutive game. Merrill is clearly focused on his swing decisions. He has chased 31% of the pitches he has seen outside the zone over his past 12 games compared to nearly 38% before that. Importantly, he is not chasing waste pitches, and he is getting to 1-0 and 2-0 far more often in the past week or so.
• Conversely, Machado is missing too many pitches he should be destroying - and has in the past destroyed far more often. His eight-pitch walk in last night’s first inning featured a foul ball on a fastball up and in the middle of the zone. Two of his groundouts last night came on fastballs in the strike zone, both up in the zone. Here is a look at how Machado is faring against fastballs in the strike zone this season compared to the previous six.

All right, that's it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 6:59 AM.