Good morning,
It will be a pretty big deal if Xander Bogaerts is going to actually earn his inclusion in the Core Four.
Last night, in the 12th inning, Bogaerts hit the first walk-off grand slam for the Padres since 2020 — a blast by Manny Machado against the Rangers that was the third of the four grand slams in the “Slam Diego” streak.
This is Slam Diego. pic.twitter.com/O1nTCIUNqP
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) April 10, 2026
Bogaerts is 9-for-22 with two home runs, a double and two walks over the past five games, which began with him going 3-for-3 with a walk on Sunday in Boston.
So that is good, especially since Machado is 2-for-11 with three walks since his huge game Sunday in Boston, Jackson Merrill is 1-for-17 since his huge game Sunday in Boston and Fernando Tatis Jr. is 3-for-16 with two walks since his pretty big game Sunday in Boston.
But the truly significant development last night was that Luis Campusano was a hero too.
Campusano, who subbed in at catcher in the 10th inning after Miguel Andujar pinch-hit for Freddy Fermin in the ninth, extended the game in the 11th inning with a two-out single that drove in Bogaerts from third base.
“I think Campy deserves a lot of the credit for this one,” Bogaerts said. “I mean, it was his first at-bat in the game. He didn’t even get an at-bat. He goes up there, his first pitch, tough lefty, put a good swing on it and got a double.”
In the next half-inning, Campusano made a big contribution behind the plate. Or more accurately out in front and to the side of the plate.
With one out and Willi Castro on third base, Brenton Doyle grounded a ball through the middle of the infield that brought Castro charging toward home.
Jake Cronenworth fielded the ball on the edge of the grass and fired a throw so on the mark that it would have crossed in front of Castro’s face as he dove past it had Campusano not caught the ball and in a fluid motion motion swept his arm back and tagged Castro.
“A really good tag,” infield coach Ryan Goins said.
The growth in Campusano as a communicator was noticeable in spring training. And pitchers have been complimentary of his work.
It appears all that is real.
But what happened last night (and what has been happening the past several days) could be looked back on as a turning point. This kid has been broken down in past years. He and the team need results.
“It’s just fun to see his belief in himself,” manager Craig Stammen said last night. “When he’s catching,we saw that in spring training. We saw the confidence he had in himself behind the plate. And now we’re starting to see it once he kind of broke the seal and hit that double in Boston, that he’s the Luis Campusano that we saw last year in El Paso.”
That is a reference to Campusano having one of the finest offensive seasons in 2025 any player has had in Triple-A in several years.
Campusano doubled in a run last Friday at Fenway Park to end his season-opening hitless streak at nine at-bats and his overall hitless streak at 0-for-35.
“We can go now,” he said that night.
He has a hit in all three games he has played since then, hitting two more RBI doubles.
“It’s a beautiful thing about baseball,” Campusano said last night. “Everyone has a turn.”
For more on those plays and all that led up to them, including another strong start by Randy Vásquez, you can read my game story (here).
Not quite as good
There is a newish analytical metric called Stuff+ that measures the physical quality of pitches based on velocity, movement, release point and spin rate — the things that together determine how difficult a pitch is to hit.
Basically, it measures the nastiness of pitches.
And according to mlbdatawarehouse.com, the Padres had through 12 games faced the nastiest pitching of any team in the major leagues so far this season.
In their 13th game, they faced the team with the lowest Stuff+ in the major leagues. In other words, the least nasty pitching staff in the majors. They also face that team the next three days.
Where the Padres have faced five starting pitchers who rank in the top 44 in Stuff+ this season, the highest-ranked Rockies starter they will face is Kyle Freeland (No.81) on Sunday.
There has been at least a paragraph or two in almost every newsletter this season devoted to giving context to the Padres’ lack of offensive production so far this season.
Among that context has been the reality about the quality of pitchers they have faced.
We won’t be talking about that as a factor for the next few days.
One thing we can still discuss is that the Padres are not being rewarded in many ways.
They entered yesterday’s game second in the major leagues in line drive rate, fifth in hard-hit percentage and fifth in expected batting average.
They ended up with nine hits in the series opener against the Rockies, four of them in extra innings, and now rank 25th in MLB with a .214 batting average and 26th with a .621 OPS.
They could easily have had a few more hits, but their best-struck balls continued to find fielders.
The Padres hit a season-high 13 balls with an exit velocity over 100 mph last night. They were 5-for-12 with a sacrifice fly on those scorched balls and are batting .490 on balls hit 100 mph or harder this season. (The MLB average on such balls is .571.)
All these metrics suggest that we shouldn’t be seeing very much longer these astonishing numbers I saw when I looked out at the big video board in last night’s seventh inning.
Estrada has slowed
Maybe some of abuela’s cooking will do it.
“My grandma freaking said that I look too skinny,” Jeremiah Estrada said. “So she’s bringing me tamales tomorrow.”
Estrada spoke last night after an outing in which all 12 fastballs he threw were slower than any of the 702 fastballs he threw last season.
“I don’t want to say that I’m worried,” he said, “because it’s lingering in my head a little bit that I’m worried.”
Estrada’s velocity has been down somewhat since spring training. But he hit 97 mph as recently as his first two regular season appearances. His fastest pitch in four games since then has been 95.6 mph. He averaged 97.9 last season and topped 99 mph 70 times.
“I have no idea,” said Estrada, who worked the 10th inning and got one out in the 11th, allowing an unearned run in both innings. “I’m probably the strongest I’ve ever been.”
The weight loss — down about 10 pounds to 220 – is one theory. A mechanical change that has altered his extension could be contributing. He also said he worked extremely hard this offseason after throwing more in 2025 than he ever had.
Estrada vacillated between acknowledging his concern and declaring he was trusting God with whatever happens.
“It’s not hard to know this is a worry,” he said. “It’s kind of a bit of a shock.”
The velocity on all his pitches are down, and he can’t seem to find the command of his usually elite splitter. He got just two strikes with it last night versus five balls, including two he bounced in the dirt.
“We’ll dissect it,” he said. “We have the best pitching staff in baseball. All it takes is just go back into the office and look back at what’s going on. I’m trying my hardest to say I’m not worried about it. But I am not. This game is about taking time and patience. You’ve got to figure it out quick, though, it’s the big leagues.”
Welcome addition
The Padres appear set to get a fresh arm for their bullpen today, as Jason Adam is expected to be activated off the injured list.
The timing is good.
Perhaps Estrada will be given a rest with an IL stint. But even if that does not happen, he has pitched the past two days and will be unavailable today. Mason Miller has also worked the past two days, and it doesn’t figure the Padres will push him this early in the season despite his having thrown just 20 total pitches. And they would almost certainly prefer to stay away from Bradgley Rodriguez and David Morgan after they got four and five outs, respectively, last night.
Tatis’ idea
Stammen said the sacrifice bunt laid down by Tatis at the start of the 12th inning, which got Cronenworth to third base before the two intentional walks, was not called from the dugout.
“He decided that he wanted to bunt in that moment,” Stammen said. “I think Fernando wanted to impact the game in some way. And at that moment, he felt like that’s how we were going to win the game. He’s a baseball player. That was his natural instinct to like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna bunt here.’ And so I fully supported it, all in on it. ‘Tati’ has got great baseball instincts. I’ll go with what he’s thinking.”
Better?
The relative excitement around the Rockies having arrived in San Diego at 6-6 is a reaction based on their relative awfulness.
They have the worst record in the major leagues since 2022 and this was the first time since that season they did not have a losing record 12 games in.
So it was not the same old Rockies. But it sort of was.
Take the sixth inning, in which Machado should have been out three times and then should have scored.
First, Rockies second baseman Edouard Julien fielded a grounder by Machado and, with Machado jogging down the line anticipating a sure out, Julien bounced the throw that Troy Johnston could not handle.
While Bogaerts was up, pitcher Chase Dollander threw to first and appeared to pick off Machado. Umpire Hunter Wendelsted even signaled out before the ball popped loose from Johnston’s glove.
Bogaerts followed with a grounder to Ezequiel Tovar that the Rockies shortstop simply dropped as he went to throw for what would have been a sure force of Machado at second base.
Machado was on second with one out before Gavin Sheets struck out. Machado and Bogaerts both stole while Nick Castellanos was up but were stranded when Castellanos struck out.
Back to it
A day after his strikeout streak ended at 11 batters, Mason Miller began a new streak.
He struck out all three batters he faced in the ninth inning last night and came within one ball to the third batter from an immaculate inning.
It was the third time in his past four outings he has had three strikeouts in his inning of work. None of the three-up, three-K innings has taken more than 12 pitches.
Here are the updated numbers on Miller’s scoreless streak:
New City Connects
The new Día de los Muertos-themed City Connect uniforms dropped yesterday, and the Padres will wear them tonight.
You can read Ryan Finley’s story (here) on the early morning reveal.
I’m a plain old man. I appreciate subtle. And I think these are subtly awesome.
Whether you like them or not, there is a lot to appreciate about the effort.
The beauty is in the details, like the trim on the sleeves and the tags that pay tribute to past Padres logos and colors.
This video is extremely well done and makes you feel like the Padres get their place in the culture. It also helps us understand what the uniforms are about.
Para nuestra familia, San Diego y los fieles, por siempre.
For our family, San Diego, and the Faithful, forever. pic.twitter.com/4QwQhpcAvg
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) April 9, 2026
Now, all that said, new jerseys are about selling merchandise.
And these jerseys sold.
The Padres surpassed $1.1 million in sales of new City Connect gear yesterday, doubling the the previous largest single-day Petco Park merchandise sales record set on opening day in 2023.
Tidbits
- Vásquez is one of the stories of the season for the Padres so far. His 1.02 ERA ranks sixth in the National League, and the 94.5 mph average on his fastball is up a full mile per hour over last season. So if you’d like to read some interesting things I almost guarantee you don’t know about him, check out Annie Heilbrunn’s Q&A with Vásquez (here).
- Practice is what made that perfect play in the 12th inning. The Padres finish their pregame infield work every day with every infielder taking three ground balls — one directly at them, one to the left and one to the right while drawn in on the grass — and throwing home. Said Goins: “It can be overlooked how important it is. But if they score. …”
- Tatis hit the two hardest balls in last night’s game — a 111.3 mph sacrifice fly and a 108.4 mph groundout. His nine balls hit at least 105 mph are tied for fourth-most in the major leagues. He is 5-for-8 with a sacrifice fly.
- Tatis’ sacrifice bunt was the first by the Padres this season. They led MLB with 48 sacrifice bunts in 2025.
- The 85.3 mph throw by Fermin that got Julien trying to steal second base last night was the eighth-fastest thrown by a catcher this season.
- Machado is batting .231 (6-for-26) with a .400 OBP during an eight-game hitting streak.
- Adrian Morejón worked a scoreless eighth inning last night. It was the first of his five appearances in which he did not allow a run or allow an inherited runner to score.
- The first five ABS challenges last night resulted in home plate umpire Nic Lentz’s calls being overturned. By night’s end, seven of the 10 challenges resulted in overturned calls.
- Sheets hit his team-leading fifth double of the season. He also singled in the 11th inning. His three multi-hit games are tied with Ramón Laureano for second most on the team behind Bogaerts’ four.
- Sheets, a first baseman who played mostly left field in 2025 before moving back to first base this season, made his first start of the season in left field last night. He made a terrific running catch in the eighth inning. Fortunately, this time he had plenty of room before encountering a wall. Said Sheets, referring to the shirts that were the brainchild of Merrill that showed Sheets running into the left field trying to catch a home run last season: “Yeah, we didn’t need another T-shirt.”
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.
