Padres Daily: San Diego Chihuahuas; Mason to the middle; Will's way; Hunt's perspective

Good morning from Baltimore,

The Padres may have stopped their season from bleeding out with an infusion of players from their Triple-A affiliate.

OK, that is definitely simplifying and partially distorting what has happened.

But the San Diego Chihuahuas are in full effect.

Six of the 13 position players on the Padres' roster as of yesterday began the season in Triple-A (or began their season there when they got healthy).

Five were still playing for El Paso this month.

Four started yesterday's game.

Three of them scored all of the Padres' runs in yesterday's series-clinching 5-2 victory over the Orioles.

"You look at the El Paso group, we’re going to play hard," Samad Taylor said. "And that’s the big thing. Just play hard and see where we’re at in the ninth inning."

That is pretty much what happened yesterday in the Padres' fifth victory in eight games, a surge that comes on the heels of 10 losses in 11 games.

You can read in my game story (here) about how the Padres took an early lead thanks to some good fortune, added on thanks to some power and held on thanks to the bullpen backing up a solid start by Walker Buehler.

Here is what the San Diego Chihuahuas who played yesterday did:

• Catcher Rodolfo Durán took advantage of a fortunate bounce on a grounder in the second inning and hustled up an RBI double. Duran then scored on Fernando Tatis Jr.'s single. Durán's two-run homer in the seventh inning, his second home run in two days, pushed the Padres' lead to 4-1.
• Taylor was the one who scored on Durán's double, having bunted his way aboard to begin the inning.
• Will Wagner, who walked as a pinch-hitter for fellow recent promotee Nick Solak in the seventh, scored on Durán's homer. Then, after reaching on an error to start the ninth inning and getting to third on another error, Wagner tagged up on a line drive to right field by Tatis and scored by sliding headfirst wide of the plate and reaching in to beat the tag.
• Jase Bowen started in right field and made a diving catch to take away an extra-base hit and end the fourth inning.

While it generally is not a winning recipe for a contending team to mix in a bunch of minor leaguers. That is part of what has the Padres cooking for now.

And it is likely that actually mixing in those players is a big part of the reason why it is working.

Taylor has started the past seven games in left field, has at least one hit in all them and is 10-for-26 (.385) with eight RBIs. Wagner is 4-for-9 with five walks and has started four times since being recalled on Tuesday. Solak arrived Saturday, pinch-hit in that game and started yesterday. Bowen, who is 3-for-25, has started six of the Padres' 11 games since he was called up.

"What usually happens is you bring these guys up and then they sit the bench, and you bring them in for like one game every three days, and it’s tough for them to go from playing every day to once every three or four days," manager Craig Stammen said. "Jase is probably going through that a little bit, but the other guys are getting at-bats and getting to play right away, so they’re still in that rhythm of baseball that we always talk about."

Time well spent

It wasn't long ago that there was at least a little concern almost every time Mason Miller pitched that he was doing so too much.

His two-thirds of an inning against the Dodgers on May 19 was his 22nd appearance in the Padres' first 48 games. It was the fifth time he had pitched in 11 days, and two of those outings were four-out saves.

He said at the time he felt fine but acknowledged the workload was piling up.

There was no denying Miller’s dominance had waned along with his command.

He went from averaging 14 pitches an inning and a 71% strike rate in his first 17 appearances to 23.8 pitches per inning and a 59% strike rate in five appearances from May 9 to 19.

He pitched just twice over the next 17 days, including a four-out save on May 29 in which he walked two batters and had to throw 30 pitches.

On June 5, he threw 17 pitches to four batters, got just two outs and allowed a run. His ERA swelled to 1.05. (Gasp!)

Miller pitched yesterday for the first time in five days and for just the fifth time in the past 16 days.

But it was not so much the rest he has gotten recently that made yesterday's four-out save less of a big lift. It was that he didn't make himself work so hard.

"This was different just because I threw strikes and didn't put myself in bad situations," Miller said. "Still got four outs, but in about half as many pitches."

Miller threw 18 pitches after entering the game with two out and a runner on first in the eighth inning. He struck out three batters and got a soft line out to end the game and secure his 19th save.

He had thrown at least 29 pitches in his past three four-out saves and 19 pitches in his first one this season, back on April 1.

Miller has in his past three outings struck out eight of the 10 batters he has faced while throwing a total of 51 pitches (15.3 per inning).

It seems he is mostly just letting his ridiculous stuff play.

During this time of relatively limited game activity, among his focuses has been to commit to essentially throw the ball down the middle - or have that be his general mindset.

"It's making adjustments over the course of the year," he said. "I didn’t show that ability right away when I had time down. It's just being intentional. It's the mental side of it and going right at guys. … Just like you have your target being in (an) area as opposed to ‘I'm going to try and dot this one,' and then you're not as sharp as you should be."

Half of Miller's 18 pitches were in the strike zone yesterday, including eight fastballs. He got three misses on the five sliders he threw below the zone.

It is endlessly fascinating that a guy whose fastball averages 101 mph and whose slider gets more misses and bigger misses than any pitch currently being thrown by any pitcher can sometimes try to be too fine.

"I demand a lot of myself," Miller said. "That's part of the reason why I have the success I have. But also, it’s like, yeah, sometimes you should just throw it in the box."

There's a Will

The under-the-radar move among the Padres' trade deadline smorgasbord last summer was the acquisition of Will Wagner. The Padres raved at the time about his "professional at-bats."

What they valued is evident almost every time he goes to the plate this season.

Wagner, who suffered an oblique strain in spring training and did not play in El Paso until May 1, has reached base nine times in 14 plate appearances while striking out twice since being called up on Tuesday.

He is seeing 4.6 pitches per plate appearances and has chased just four of the 40 pitches he has seen outside the strike zone. Given that he bats left-handed, it is an easy comparison to Jake Cronenworth when Cronenworth is on one of his hot streaks.

It was difficult to see that as Wagner got 17 plate appearances across 15 games for the Padres last season.

"It's fun being in the lineup almost every day, being part of the team," Wagner said yesterday.

Hustling up some slug

When a guy makes it to the major leagues after 11 seasons in the minors, he busts it out of the box on a slow grounder even though he is not all that fast and probably just made the third out in an inning.

That is what Durán did when he hit a ball essentially right at second baseman Jeremiah Jackson in the second inning. And when the 74 mph roller ricocheted off second base, up and over Jackson and bounced into an open area of grass in right-center field, Durán was in position to turn trying to beat out a throw at first into trying to beat out a throw to second.

"As soon as I saw it, I ran right away, because I knew that I didn’t hit it good," he said. "And as soon as it hit the bag and went up and down to the outfield, I say, ‘I’m gonna go.' And we were safe."

For the Padres, it was a case of better to be lucky than good and of making their own luck, as Durán's hustle put him in position to score on Tatis' single.

With that fortunate double and then his 432-foot homer, Durán continued to pump up his slugging percentage.

He is now batting .176 (6-for-34) with a .500 slugging percentage. Of his six hits, three are homers and two are doubles.

Hunt's perspective

The most recent roster addition, catcher Blake Hunt, arrived in Baltimore yesterday.

He will be around for at least a week after Freddy Fermin was placed on the seven-day concussion injured list.

You can read about that, along with an update on Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta, in my notebook (here).

The nuts and bolts of Hunt's journey are detailed in the notebook. But in short, his professional career began in 2017 when he was drafted in the second round out of Mater Dei (Santa Ana) High by the Padres. Yes, in the same round just 30 spots after they selected catcher Luis Campusano.

Hunt has been traded three times and re-signed with the Padres as a minor-league free agent this past offseason.

He will make his major league debut this week after spending most of the past four seasons in Triple-A with four different organizations.

His answer in response to a question about being on the verge of being a bona fide big leaguer was not what you might expect.

"At this point in my career, I just kind of treat everything as house money," he said. "A few years ago - just struggling in Double-A, repeating levels - I was just contemplating what’s next in life. And I did some mental work on the outside with my agency and someone they have. And I just kind of redefined what my career was to me and what success looked like. It just changed my overall outlook and attitude. So it’s house money. I’m just enjoying being here and competing. The last couple years it has been at the Triple-A level. But this is an opportunity here, and I’m just happy to have it."

Asked to clarify what success is to him now, Hunt said something that would make Stammen smile. The Padres manager talks about it being a key for every player.

Said Hunt of his definition of success: "Enjoying the game and playing like a kid again."

‘Peak Bradgley'

Rookie reliever Bradgley Rodriguez had allowed a run in each of his previous four appearances. He had walked two batters and allowed five hits, one of them a homer.

Upon entering yesterday's game, he walked Pete Alonso and had Samuel Basallo drop a single between Xander Bogaerts and Jackson Merrill at the start of the sixth inning. And after a sacrifice bunt, Rodriguez was faced with two runners in scoring position and 2-1 lead in grave danger of slipping away.

"I just tried to stay focused on the present," he said. "I knew trusting my pitches was going to let me get out of trouble."

Those pitches did it. And perhaps Orioles manager Craig Albernaz's decision to not only stick with left-handed-hitting Colton Cowser but to send up left-handed-hitting pinch-hitter Jackson Holliday played into Rodriguez's strength.

The right-handed Rodriguez, who has some pretty severe reverse splits, faring far better against left-handed hitters, struck out both batters to end the inning.

Cowser swung through a full-count changeup to end a six-pitch at-bat in which he saw five changeups.

Rodriguez then set up Holliday with three changeups - a called strike, a swinging strike and one Holliday laid off below the zone - before blowing a 100 mph sinker above the zone that Holliday swung under.

With Basallo's single and the two strikeouts, left-handers are now batting .188 (12-for-64) against Rodriguez. That includes an .057 (2-for-35) mark on at-bats that end on a changeup. (Righties are batting .262 against him.)

"I wouldn’t say he has … been on fire here these last (few) outings," Stammen said. "But those last two batters were peak Bradgley Rodriguez right there. He was very dominant against two left-handed hitters. And that changeup - that plus-plus changeup - showed up. That was probably the key to our victory today."

Durán homered in the next half-inning to extend the Padres' lead, which was left to Jason Adam, Adrian Morejón and Miller to protect.

Pitching plan

The Padres will use an opener tonight and possibly on Wednesday.

The latter will depend on how much the bullpen has been used and which relievers are available.

The plan is for Lucas Giolito, who has worked four innings in each of his past two starts, to follow a reliever tonight with the idea being he starts the second inning and can get the Padres to at least some point in the sixth without having had to face the top of the order a third time.

Griffin Canning's turn in the rotation is Wednesday. Canning has allowed at least one run in the first inning of four of his past six starts.

Michael King will start tomorrow.

Tidbits

• Tatis went 2-for-4 with a sacrifice fly yesterday. He has multiple hits in 10 of his past 19 games and is batting .383 with a .414 on-base percentage in that span. And he is now an above-average offensive player. Tatis in those 19 games has raised his wRC+ 26 points to 101. He has been worth 1.1 WAR in that stretch (since May 24), and his 1.5 WAR now leads all Padres hitters. (Miller's 1.9 WAR leads the team.)
• One of Tatis' hits yesterday was a bunt single down the third base line. It was his first bunt hit since 2024 and the fourth of his career. He had two his rookie season in 2019.
• Part of the reason the play at the plate was so close when Wagner scored was that Tatis' "sacrifice fly" was actually a 107.2 mph line drive. It was the eighth ball Tatis has put in play at 106 mph or harder in the past 10 games. The only player to have hit more balls that hard since June 5 is the Cardinals' Jordan Walker (10).
• Trevor Rogers (six innings, two runs) threw the 33rd quality start of the season against the Padres. No team has had more quality starts thrown against it this season. However, yesterday was the fourth consecutive time the Padres have won such a game, and they are 15-18 (.454) when having a quality start thrown against them. The rest of the league has a .288 winning percentage when an opposing starter goes at least six innings while allowing three or fewer earned runs.
• The Padres have not trailed in the past two games. They had trailed at some point in every one of their previous 17 games.
• Merrill was 2-for-5 yesterday. That included him going 1-for-3 against the left-handed Rogers. Merrill has eight hits in his past 24 at-bats against left-handers and is batting .250 against them this season after batting .238 against them in his first two seasons. (Merrill is batting .191 against righties, 107 points lower than in his first two seasons.)
• The Padres scored two runs in two innings yesterday and have scored multiple runs in 10 of their past 70 innings (nine games). They had done so in eight of their previous 126 innings (14 games).
• Turns out, the second round of the 2017 draft was big for the Padres. Besides Hunt (69th overall) and Campusano (39th overall), they now have on their roster from that round in ‘17 Canning (47th by the Angels) and Gavin Sheets (49th by the White Sox).
• Since we're talking about random connections: There are three sons of former major leaguers on the Padres roster - Wagner, Sheets and Tatis. According to Elias, the Padres are one of three teams to have had three sons of former major leaguers play together in at least one game this season. Sheets, Tatis and Wagner also appeared in games together last season. Before that, the last time the Padres had at least that many sons of former major leaguers on the field at the same time was July 31, 2010, when Tony Gwynn Jr., Jerry Hairston Jr., Scott Hairston and Will Venable were in the starting lineup and Ryan Webb pitched in relief.

All right, that's it for me. Early flight and then a game tonight in St. Louis.

(Yes, I said in yesterday's newsletter that I had a flight after the game. That was true. But then all we did was sit on the tarmac for 90 minutes waiting for the weather to clear before the crew timed out. So now I fly this morning.)

Talk to you tomorrow.

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