Padres Daily: No longer just a RISPy business; Cease wants to hug more, walk less; the Manny effect

Good morning from Milwaukee,

The Padres wasted a lot of opportunities last night.

The more crucial point is that they gave themselves a lot of opportunities.

“Just keep creating, no matter what,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said. “Obviously, we’re not gonna get all of them. But we’re creating situations, which is bigger.”

You can read in my game story (here) how it was that the Padres went about winning their third straight game, a 6-3 victory over the Brewers last night.

It was different from the manner in which they had recently been winning games, in that they never trailed. But it was similar to how their offense has operated much of the season, in that the Padres consistently put the ball in play and scored runs in bunches.

It didn’t end up mattering that they failed in 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position and twice came up empty in an inning after having a runner on third base with less than two outs. Because they got four hits with runners in scoring position and scored two more runs with productive outs.

Last night’s first inning was the MLB-leading 12th time the Padres have scored four runs or more in an inning. In five of those, they have driven in a run with an out.

“It’s hard to do anything without putting the ball in play as a starting point, right?” Shildt said. “We’re consistently doing that, and then you couple that with putting the ball in play with the right intent. You have nine hitters that are doing that like we are, you’re going to get good production throughout the game.”

Baseball games can be won all sorts of ways. But teams that reach base 14 times, as the Padres did last night, are 23-13 (.639) this season. Those that do so and have a starting pitcher go at least six innings and allow no more than a run, as the Padres did last night, are 6-1 (.857).

Sure, some games won’t work out this way.

We saw it all last year. It was the season of missed opportunities.

And there was a time midway through last night’s game, when the Padres went seven straight at-bats with runners in scoring position and without even moving a runner over with an out, that it seemed the failures might come back to haunt them.

But, as they have done much of the season, they just kept throwing punches. And enough of them landed.

Something similar happened in Monday’s come-from-behind victory, in which the Padres trailed 3-1 in the fifth and had a 7-3 lead by the time that inning was over.

“Sticking with the plan, believing in it,” Manny Machado said. “There’s gonna be some good days, gonna be some bad days. But sticking with it. … You stick to the plan and execute it. Sometimes the other guys make some bastard pitches. Like (Joe) Ross early in the game (Monday). He was dotting, dotting, dotting, didn’t make any mistakes. And we just stuck with the plan instead of aborting it and being like, ‘Let’s just change it up.’ We stuck with it. And we ended up getting him out in the fifth and executing and driving in those runs. That’s the little things that we continue to do as a team.”

Unaccustomed to a lineup that consistently passes the proverbial baton, perhaps Padres observers are too attuned to batting average with runners in scoring position and are living in a world in which runners left on base is virtually always a bad thing.

Those can be important statistical measures. But a team that keeps giving itself chances will succeed more often than not.

“Eventually,” Xander Bogaerts said, “if you keep putting yourself in situations like that, guys are going to come through and stuff is gonna start going your way.”

Again, especially if the pitching is concurrently doing it’s job.

“That’s what happens when it all clicks at the same time,” Bogaerts said. “Last year, I felt like we had one of this and the other of that.”

It is true that the middling Padres offense left the fifth-most runners on base last season. And the worse-than-middling Cardinals led the major leagues in runners left on base. But the Rangers were second and the Dodgers third in that category. The Dodgers were second in runs scored. The Rangers scored the third-most runs and went on to win the World Series.

The Dodgers and Rangers also ranked in the top seven in batting average and OPS and average with runners in scoring position in 2023.

This season, the Padres are fifth in MLB in batting average, sixth in OPS and seventh with a .291 average with runners in scoring position.

After leaving eight runners on last night, they rank eighth in runners left on base this season.

Here is a look at what happens this season when the Padres and every MLB team leave eight runners on base versus when they leave less than eight:

“I think the best teams have a lot of opportunities,” Shildt said. “And then the really, really good teams take advantage — like we have — of the opportunities that are out there. So I feel good about it.”

Cease’s gratitude

Multiple times last night, as has happened during all his games this season, Dylan Cease acknowledged one of the defenders behind him following a nice play.

“When they make a big play, it makes me happy,” he said. “I just want to go up to them and give them a hug.”

He is clearly enamored with and grateful for his new team’s ability to help him keep runners off the bases and runs off the board.

“I think the biggest thing is just the defense has been spectacular,” Cease said. “... This offense and this defense doesn’t quit, which is fantastic. It always feels like we kind of have the momentum, if that makes sense.”

It kind of did. But Cease was asked to expand.

“It’s a combination of everything. I think with our offense, it doesn’t feel like we give away a lot of at-bats. So it’s like, we’re constantly working, getting on base. The defense is great . So … when you play clean baseball, you’re not giving away anything. Clean baseball with talent is a good combination, and I feel like we’ve done that really well so far.”

The Padres entered last night ranked third in the majors in outs above average and runs prevented and tied for fifth in defensive runs saved.

Perhaps the Padres’ dependability is especially sweet for a guy coming from the White Sox, who last season ranked 24th in OAA, 25th in runs prevented and 29th in DRS.

Best yet to come?

The Padres haven’t seen the best of Cease. But they have seen why he can be the pitcher who had a 2.20 ERA over 184 innings and finished second in American League Cy Young voting two seasons ago.

“He’s special,” Machado said.

“First of all, his stuff is so nasty,” Shildt said. “Sometimes you get the opportunity to sit back and appreciate when somebody does something spectacular on a baseball field. And, man, he threw some pitches that were like — that’s just nasty stuff. Exploding fastball, dirty slider. … What I appreciate also is — and everybody has a different competitive spirit — but Dylan clearly has a strong competitive spirit. He goes out, he’s getting after it. He was really intent on finishing the sixth, which set us up for the rest of the day. As I’m getting to know him, I’m appreciating his stuff, appreciating his work ethic, really appreciating his competitive spirit.”

Cease went six innings and struck out seven for the third straight game. His 110 pitches made it the third time in a row he got into triple digits. He allowed just two hits for the second straight game.

What grated on him were the season-high four walks.

“I’m not happy with the inconsistencies with the command,” he said. “But it’s hard to be unhappy with the results. … I just feel like I’m command-wise better than what I proved today, but that’s baseball sometimes. It happens. The (games) I have command are the ones where I punch the world and then I go deep (in the game). It hasn’t quite happened this year, but I’m happy with everything so far.”

Opponents are batting .130 against him. That breaks down thusly: left-handed batters are 9-for-38 (.237) and right-handed batters are 1-for-39 (.026).

“Now if we limit the walks,” he said, “we’ll be all the way there.”

Remembering Whitey

Shildt draws on a lot of influences from his 18 years in the Cardinals organization.

One of those influences was Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog, whose death Monday at age 92 was announced by the Cardinals yesterday.

“A mentor of mine and role model of mine and somebody I admire greatly — not only as a manager but as a person and someone who was really good to me personally and professionally,” Shildt said yesterday afternoon. “It’s a sad day. … A great man, great baseball man and legitimate Hall of Famer on and off the field.”

One of Shildt’s favored philosophies is, “You’re not going to be good at what you don’t work on.” He got it from an interaction with Herzog.

Ouch!

Machado hit a ball off Brewers starter Wade Miley’s knee with a 107.7 mph line drive in the first inning. The ball bounced far enough toward the line that first baseman Jake Bauers picked it up and tagged out Machado.

After walking and striking out in his next two plate appearances, Machado came to bat in the seventh needing a hit to extend his hitting streak to 10 games.

He again hit a Brewers pitcher with a line drive — this one off a meatier portion of Elvis Peguero’s leg at 103.5 mph. Bauers could not pick that one up in time, and Machado had a single.

Both pitchers stayed in the game, though Miley was clearly hobbled and left after the third.

Machado was not relishing what he had done.

“That sucks,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Not a coincidence

Machado is batting .333 with two home runs and five RBIs during his hitting streak, which is the third-longest active streak in the majors.

The Padres have won seven of those 10 games.

Machado was batting .184 before beginning this hot stretch, and the Padres were 4-6.

This correlation is not a rarity. I wrote (here) about the Machado effect shortly before the season.

The Padres are 5-1 this year when he drives in at least one run, 3-1 when he hits a home run and 8-6 when he has at least one hit.

Tidbits

• My pregame notebook (here) led with an update on Jake Cronenworth’s health status.
  
• Tatis was 3-for-4 last night. His three three-hit games are tied for the team lead with Luis Campusano and Jackson Merrill. He is 8-for-20 in the five games on this trip.
  
• The Padres have scored 23 runs in the first inning this season, second most in the majors behind the Diamondbacks (25).
  
• Merrill’s four-game hitting streak came to an end. But he stole his fourth base to move into a tie for the team lead with Ha-Seong Kim. He also drove in a run with a fielder’s choice grounder and has at least one RBI in three consecutive games.
  
• Among the things the Padres are doing more this season is stealing bases. They stole two last night, their fourth game with multiple steals and fifth game with multiple attempts. It took them 33 games last season to reach both those thresholds. Now, they are also getting on base at a greater rate this year (.338 OBP compared to .308 through 20 games last season).
  
• Yuki Matsui replaced Adrian Morejón with two outs and runners at the corners in the seventh inning. Matsui walked the first batter he faced and then ended the inning with a strikeout. Over his past six outings, he has allowed two hits and no runs and has stranded all three runners he has inherited.
  
• Similar to what Stephen Kolek did the previous night, Jhony Brito began last night’s eighth inning and got through one out in the ninth. After walking a batter, he was replaced by Wandy Peralta, who allowed the runner to score before finishing the game. Brito allowed eight runs (six earned) in his first five games (4⅔ innings). He has allowed one run in his past three games (4⅓ innings).
  
• It was a fine night for the Padres to hold a four-run lead entering the ninth inning, because closer Robert Suarez was almost certainly not available after pitching the previous two days and three of the previous four days.

All right, that’s it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.