Padres Daily: Petco Park launching pad; not right against lefties; big holes

Good morning,

A couple of the things that have routinely plagued the Padres continued to do so last night.

They lost at home. They lost a game in which a left-hander started for their opponent.

My game story (here) from last night’s 8-0 loss to the Yankees detailed some of the Padres’ woes at home.

They are 10-16 at Petco Park this season.

As discussed in yesterday’s newsletter, the real difference between this year and previous seasons at home is the Padres’ pitchers performance at Petco Park (the well known PPP@PP).

(baseball-reference; U-T research)

Yu Darvish allowed four home runs last night, bringing the total allowed at Petco Park this season to 70. At 2.69 homers per game, it is the most generous park in the major leagues. The only season Petco Park has ever finished ranked higher than 14th in homers allowed was 2020, the COVID-shortened season, which was full of anomalies and was also played entirely in the warmer summer months.

“This is what I can’t explain: we give up homers at home,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “I just can’t explain (that) in this ballpark.”

It ain’t right

The Padres have been shut out six times this year. In five of those games, they faced a left-handed starting pitcher.

They had three hits last night against Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodón and are batting .214 with a .619 OPS against lefties, the fourth-lowest average and fifth-lowest OPS against lefties by any MLB team. (Their .273 batting average against right-handers is best in the majors, and their .749 OPS is fifth best.)

While the Padres were shut out on successive nights earlier this week in games started by lefties and have lost eight of their past 10 games against left-handed starters, they have actually had more success lately. They got nine hits and three runs to beat Atlanta’s Max Fried on May 17 and were 6-for-9 against the Reds’ left-handed relievers this week.

Still, here is where Padres batters stand against lefties this season:

(baseball-reference; U-T research)

Notice that the Padres’ “Big Three” have all been historically good against left-handed pitchers and are batting under .200 against them this season

“You just keep going,” hitting coach Victor Rodriguez said. “It is tough. We have a right-handed-hitting team. I think it’s just continue to work.”

The Padres do seem to be genuinely perplexed by the lagging against lefties and somewhat willing to dismiss this as a small sample size.

But Shildt did say this week, “You can’t ignore it.”

Potential good news: The Padres face right-handed starters the next two days against the Yankees.

Potential bad news: All three starters the Marlins have lined up for the series that begins Monday at Petco Park are left-handed.

Hole diggers

To go a little deeper on one of the issues discussed in my game story, the Padres starting rotation has continued to be highly inconsistent.

How inconsistent? Well, it was the one assertion on which Shildt did not push back in his May 15 postgame news conference when virtually every other question was met with a contradictory answer.

Since then, Dylan Cease and Darvish (who both had an ERA below 2.50) have had outings in which they surrendered at least five runs in the first three innings. Every Padres starter has had at least one game in which they have allowed four or more runs while failing to finish five innings.

The Padres are 4-15 in games in which their starter has given up four or more runs. Conversely, they are 23-12 when their starter gives up three runs or fewer.

The Padres rank 12th in the major leagues with 20 quality starts. But they also have the sixth-most games in which their starter has allowed four or more runs.

The Yankees led 7-0 after three innings last night.

Teams don’t come back from that big of a hole very often.

The Padres, who beat the Cubs 9-8 after trailing 8-0 on May 8, are one of two teams to overcome a deficit of seven runs or more this season. It was done twice last season and four times in 2022.

“It’s almost as simple as the equation is,” Shildt said. “You know, when we’re down three, four runs, five runs early, just not a recipe for success. So, honestly, think it’s as simple as that. Because the games we’ve been able to get leads in early or been able to kind of duel as the game goes, we’ve been pretty darn competitive.”

Soto shuffles back

Juan Soto hit a home run, doubled and walked in his return to Petco Park.

His at-bats brought the most noise from a crowd at 43,505 — both vociferous boos from Padres fans and raucous cheering by the many Yankees fans.

Soto seemed to understand why he might not be appreciated in San Diego, based on his pregame comments. You can read those in Jeff Sanders’ story (here).

Soto, to be fair, was the Padres’ best offensive player in 2023, his only full season in San Diego. But he was not the hitter he was in Washington or is in New York.

(baseball-regerence)

Tidbits

• Luis Arraez was 0-for-4 last night, ending his on-base streak at 28 games. It was the longest streak in the major leagues this season and the longest of his career.
  
• Also coming to an end was Jurickson Profar’s hitting streak. He batted .381 (16-for-42) during his 12-game run.
  
• The Padres are back to .500 (27-27). They have spent 18 days at .500, 10 days above .500 and 26 days below .500. They are occupy the National League’s final wild-card spot. They were 25-29 at this point in 2024.
  
• The Padres are 1-4 this season while wearing their City Connect uniforms.
  
• Manny Machado’s first-inning single came off his bat at 112.2 mph, his hardest ball in play this season.
  
• Right-hander Stephen Kolek threw his six fastest pitches of the season after taking over for Darvish with two outs in the sixth. The rookie right-hander, who stranded a runner and worked a scoreless 1⅓ innings, topped out at 97.6 mph, and his four-seam fastball average was up 1.1 mph (to 94.9).

All right, that’s it for me.

There will not be a newsletter the next two days. I have some things I need to do this weekend.

Later today on our Padres page, I will have an analysis of the first third of the season, which concluded last night. We will also have our usual daily coverage on the Padres page.

The next newsletter will be in your inbox Tuesday morning.

Talk to you then.