Padres Daily: Better against the starter; Castellanos keeps feeling it; Tatis' long fly; bullpen does its job

Good morning from Milwaukee,

In a baseball game in May, and especially when a team is still seven games above .500, there are little things even in a loss that can be appreciated and built upon.

We are mostly going to focus on those today. (The negatives are abundantly clear and have been covered abundantly.)

Last night, among the positives was that the Padres did OK against a starting pitcher.

Now, they should have done OK against Brandon Sproat, who was making his 10th major league start and came into the game with a 5.87 ERA.

Baby steps.

Sproat did not last six innings, so he did not become the 21st pitcher to make a quality start against the Padres. That's something.

The Padres had runners on base in five of the six innings Sproat began and scored three runs against the 25-year-old right hander, who did get the first win of his career.

Last night's loss was the Padres' third in the 22 games in which they have scored at least four runs.

This was on Matt Waldron, who allowed six runs in 2⅔ innings after beginning his night in the second inning. Five of those runs came in the fourth inning. And had he thrown on time to first base after fielding a bunt in that inning, he likely would not have allowed the final three of those runs.

We can't assume everything else would have gone exactly the same way it did. But a 6-4 loss made "What if?" feel like a valid question.

You can read in my game story (here) about the mental blunder Waldron committed, as well as what is ahead for Waldron given the imminent arrival of Lucas Giolito.

"I thought our offense played well enough to win a ballgame tonight," Waldron said. "I thought our defense played well. I thought I pitched poorly."

Before we get back to the offense, the finest of the Padres' defensive plays last night did not prevent a hit but did help save Waldron from allowing another run.

Here is video of that play, which was the first time we have seen the shortstop version of Fernando Tatis Jr. in his 10 games at second base.

Tatis' 88.2 mph throw on that play was the hardest by any major league second baseman on a throw to first base this season.

Offensively, the Padres continued to be carried by players other than their stars. But they got eight hits - two more than they had in any of their previous five games - and they battled enough to get Sproat up to 85 pitches over 5⅓ innings.

Their six hits against Sproat were more than they had against any of the previous five starters they faced and were the same number of hits they had against the previous three starters combined. And the three runs they scored against Sproat was something they have done against just 14 other starters this season.

We can say that is what they should have done against a pitcher of Sproat's ilk. That would be true.

The Padres have not faced many pitchers as generous as Sproat. When they have, they have done about the same.

They have faced just five starting pitchers who have an ERA as high as Sproat's 5.75 mark. Those five starters happen to have a combined ERA of 5.75 against every other team they have faced and have posted a 5.51 ERA in seven starts against the Padres.

There is no disputing the Padres should have done better - last night and many games before that.

Opposing starters have a 3.29 ERA against the Padres this season. Those same starters have a 4.31 ERA against every other team they have faced. (All MLB starters have a 4.13 ERA against the other 29 teams.)

We have been over and over the specifics of their failures against starting pitchers. So I will leave you with this:

Tonight, the Padres face Jacob Misiorowski, who averages 99.5 mph on his fastball and 94.9 mph on his slider. He has a 2.45 ERA in eight starts and has not allowed a run in his past two starts (11⅓ innings). The two singles he allowed the Yankees on Friday were the only two hits he has allowed in those two starts.

Castellanos again

Sunday's hero made a big contribution last night as well.

Nick Castellanos' two-run single lined to center field with two outs in the fourth inning gave the Padres a 2-1 lead.

Castellanos was batting .146 on April 22. In his next game, on April 27, he broke an 0-for-19 streak.

In the 10 games since April 27, he has gone 8-for-25 (.320) and raised his season batting average 49 points (to .195).

Castellanos' 82 plate appearances are tied for ninth most on the team. His 15 RBIs are tied for fifth. Of those RBIs, 10 have come in the 10 games since April 27. That includes his two-run, game-tying homer with two outs in the ninth inning Sunday.

Castellanos has talked often about how he hits by feel and thrives on the rhythm of the season. That is part of what made being a role player for the first time such a difficult transition.

"For me, hitting is all a rhythm thing," he said last night. "The more that you can kind of get into a flow of something, your motions are more repeatable."

We discussed in Monday's newsletter about Castellanos becoming more comfortable in his new role.

He spoke last night about a mechanical adjustment he has applied, in part because he is playing relatively seldom.

"I’ve minimized a lot of my movement, just to kind of have a more simple approach, so it’s easier to repeat with the time in between (playing)," he said. "I just spread out a little bit, getting my foot down early and just kind of letting my eyes and hands work. I’d say so far it has allowed me to just focus on the baseball a little bit more and not worry so much about the moves that I’m trying to create.

"It started just in a game, because I didn’t feel confident with where my moves were, like, leg kicking and stuff. It just all felt kind of inconsistent. So then just in the game, I was like, ‘You know what, screw it. I’m just putting my foot down. I’m going to focus on the baseball.’ And then I kind of liked the way I was able to pick up the pitches a little bit better. And I've just kind of been sticking with it the last couple of games."

Castellanos almost worked a nine-pitch walk last night as well. But one of Brewers catcher William Contreras' three successful challenges came on that ninth pitch, a 3-2 sinker that just nicked the bottom of the zone.

OK, OK

A game after hitting his longest fly ball of the season, Tatis hit his second longest last night.

His problem is he keeps hitting those fly balls to center field, so they were caught and he remains homerless.

Last night's drive in the fifth inning left his bat at 104.5 mph with a too-high 40 degree launch angle and went 374 feet. His blast on Sunday was 105.8 mph with a 37 degree launch angle and traveled a projected 393 feet.

Tatis has pulled one fly ball this season – a 367-footer in Mexico City.

Tatis also grounded into a double play, walked and lined a single last night.

Here is a look at where and how Tatis has hit the ball his past 18 games compared to his first 22.

The opener

Bradgley Rodriguez did his job again last night.

Serving as an opener for Waldron for the second time, he retired the Brewers in order on 11 pitches in the first inning. He threw seven pitches in a 1-2-3 inning against the top of the Giants order six days earlier.

"It's pretty much the same," Rodriguez said last night through interpreter Jore Merlos. "I try to keep the same routine as if I were coming into the game later. I still go out there with the same mentality of attacking and trying to get out of that inning with the least number of pitches I can do."

The numbers support his contention.

The 23-year-old right-hander has a 1.74 ERA (four runs, 20⅔ innings) in his 18 appearances. He is averaging just 14.5 pitches per inning, allowing a .203 average and striking out 18.5% of the batters he faces.

Rodriguez has worked higher-leverage innings when one or more of the four back-end relievers has been unavailable. But eight of his appearances have come in games the Padres are trailing and two have come in games they have led by four or more runs.

"We could pick Bradgley, because we know we got Adrian Morejón, Jason, Adam, Jeremiah Estrada and Mason (Miller) in the back end," Stammen said of using Rodrguez as an opener. "… We just have a lot of really good options."

Picked up by ‘down' guys

On Sunday, two scoreless innings by Ron Marinaccio and one by Rodriguez kept the Padres' deficit at two so they were in position to tie the game in the ninth and win in the 10th.

Last night, left-handers Wandy Peralta and Yuki Matsui tried to be the ones to get the Padres there.

Peralta stranded a runner at third base after taking over for Waldron with two outs in the fourth and worked 2⅓ scoreless innings. That was followed by Yuki Matsui not allowing a run for two innings.

"We were trying to get Waldron through a few more innings, and those guys picked him up and covered 4⅓ without giving up a run and really pitched awesome," Stammen said. "Held them at bay, gives us a chance to come back. We had the tying run at the plate in both the eighth and the ninth inning. So that’s all we can ask for when we get down early like that."

Peralta has not allowed a run in his past seven innings (five appearances). Matsui has world 4⅔ scoreless innings in his two appearances since coming off the injured list.

Better than L.A.

The Padres assumed a half-game lead atop the National League West on their day off Monday.

They maintained that advantage last night despite losing for the eighth time in their past 13 games.

That is because the Dodgers' loss last night was their fourth straight and ninth in 13 games.

Tidbits

• Pitching coach Ruben Niebla is tending to a family matter and is expected to return to the team for tomorrow's series finale here. Bullpen coach Ben Fritz is serving as pitching coach and special assistant A.J. Ellis is bullpen coach while Niebla is out.
• The Padres have released outfielder Alex Verdugo, who suffered a shoulder injury that will keep him out for the season. Verdugo, who signed a minor-league deal in March, is expected to have surgery. He did not appear in a game for any of the Padres' affiliates.
• Miguel Andujar doubled and homered last night. It was his ninth multi-hit game in 28 starts and the second time in his past six games he had two extra-base hits.
• Singles by Xander Bogaerts and Nick Castellanos gave them hits in two straight games. They are tied with the longest active hitting streaks on the team.
• Stammen said he did not pinch-hit for Freddy Fermin in the ninth against Brewers right-hander Abner Uribe because Fermin "has been swinging the bat a little bit lately. I felt like he was just a better matchup against Uribe than what we had on the bench." On the bench at the time was left-hander Sung-Mun Song, switch-hitter Bryce Johnson and catcher Rodolfo Durán. Johnson had not had a plate appearance in exactly a week, and Song is 2-for-12. Fermin is batting .171 this season, but he was 1-for-4 last night and is 3-for-7 in his past two games.
• Of the seven games the Padres and Brewers have played since the start of last season, six have been decided by one or two runs.
• Last night was the fifth time the Padres have allowed five runs in an inning. That is tied with four other teams for sixth most in the major leagues.
• The Padres have trailed in 28 of their 41 games this season. They have come back to win 12 of those. Last night was one of five games in which they came back to at least tie before losing.
• It was "Bark at the Park" at American Family Field last night, meaning there were a lot of dogs in attendance and every Padres player's picture on the video board when they batted was a feline.

All right, that's it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 6:57 AM.