Padres Daily: Diaz Day; Sheets keeps going; King update; Manny milestone

Good morning from Minneapolis,

Virtually every team that accomplishes something special needs a few guys to surprise.

Gavin Sheets has been that guy on the Padres offense after signing a minor-league deal a week before spring training. Nick Pivetta is the rotation’s standout in every way when he was supposed to be a complementary piece. Adrian Morejón, still just 26, has realized his potential to become one of the best relievers in the major leagues after a few fits and starts over his decade in the organization.

If not for that trio, the Padres are not on pace for 90-plus wins and a second consecutive postseason appearance.

But what Elias Díaz has done over the past month stands out in a different way.

He went from starting almost half the Padres games and playing in nearly 80% of them to starting once every five days.

He is the personal catcher for the only starting pitcher the Padres can count on.

And since the end of July, when Díaz plays, he hits.

“I feel really good when Nick Pivetta is on the mound,” Diaz said last night. “It’s my day. That’s how I feel it.”

That is what he calls the days he starts. My Day.

And if he keeps going like this, maybe everyone else will start to refer to the days Pivetta pitches as Díaz’s start days as well.

Playing for just the seventh time in the Padres’ past 27 games, Díaz hit two home runs in a 12-3 victory over the Twins last night.

The victory and a Dodgers loss to the Diamondbacks moved the Padres back to within a game of the National League West leaders.

You can read in my game story (here) about how the rout of the Twins went down.

Díaz was a big part of it.

His first home run tied the game 1-1 in the fifth inning. His second homer punctuated a seven-run seventh inning.

It was the second straight game Díaz has played in that he homered, and he has hit .250 (11-for-44) with an .843 OPS in 13 starts since July 20. He was batting .193 with a .556 OPS before that.

“Him being able to go grab Pivetta every five days and being able to be fresh, to go do that, the at-bat quality has been really good,” manager Mike Shildt said last night. “… He’s been fantastic.”

I wrote last week (here) about how Díaz has stayed ready and remained positive while being reduced to a true backup role since the Padres acquired Freddy Fermin in a trade with the Royals.

Díaz caught Yu Darvish on Aug.5 but otherwise has caught only Pivetta this month.

“We’ve had a really good thing going the whole entire year,” Pivetta said. “I’ve had a lot of confidence in him as a catcher and as a baseball player and as a person. But to see him have success on my start days is really special, and it’s something to be excited about. We joke about it, but he’s been solid throughout, and he’s really carried the staff throughout the season. And he’s a great catcher.”

Pivetta would think so.

The right-hander is not only having the best season of his career, but Díaz is one of the biggest offensive producers when Pivetta pitches.

Díaz has hit .266 with a .766 OPS in 27 games catching for Pivetta and .180 with .484 OPS in his other 33 starts.

Said Pivetta: “I think it’s a partnership that we have.”

What then?

It seemed for a time last month that there might be a danger people would forget how big a role Sheets played in the Padres’ success early this season.

Sheets never forgot.

That is part of the reason why he is doing what he is doing, producing at as high a level as almost any player in the major leagues over the past few weeks.

“I think that was, like, knowing I’d had a good year and it wasn’t anything I did,” Sheets said of how he processed his reduced role in the aftermath of the trade deadline. “It was just adding really good players. I knew that my opportunity was still going to be there at times. And I also knew it wasn’t a fluke. My season was not a fluke. And so I knew that if I got an opportunity that I was going to be ready to go.”

Sheets hit a pair of RBI singles last night in extending his hitting streak to six games. He is batting .524 (11-for-21) during the streak and .432 (19-for-44) with a 1.275 OPS in 15 games since Aug. 11.

That date was the second of two starts he had in the first 16 games after the trade deadline.

A little less than three weeks later, the Padres now have the proverbial problem of what to do with “too many” good players.

Center fielder Jackson Merrill is expected to head to San Diego today after finishing up four days of workouts at the Padres’ complex in Peoria, Ariz..

The expectation is he will be activated from the injured list “early in the week” and possibly as soon as Monday, when the Padres begin a three-game series against the Orioles.

So what becomes of Sheets’ playing time then?

“It will be a balancing act when Jackson comes back,” Shildt said. “There’s only so many spots. But (Sheets) is definitely doing his part. He’s taking tremendous at-bats. He’s just a good player.”

Sheets also plays first base and can serve as designated hitter. But those are also the positions manned by fellow left-handed hitters Ryan O’Hearn and Luis Arraez. O’Hearn is batting .279 with three home runs and three doubles over his past 21 games. Arraez is batting .216 with eight doubles in his past 25 games.

What Sheets has shown the Padres is that he can handle not playing for spurts, though they don’t figure to keep him on the bench for most of 2½ weeks. That is what happened in the period immediately after the trade deadline until Merrill could no longer play through a sprained left ankle.

“The game will present opportunities for people,” Shildt said. “As many good players as you have, that’s better. But they all can’t play at the same time.”

Sheets replaced Merrill in the lineup in the bottom of the fourth inning on Aug. 17 in Los Angeles, playing left field while Ramón Laureano moved from left to center field. Sheets was 1-for-2 that day, and he singled in his only at-bat the next night after entering the game as a substitute in left field.

He has been in the starting lineup ever since.

In 17 games dating back to July 30, the day before Laureano was acquired from the Orioles and Sheets’ run as the Padres’ regular left fielder was halted, Sheets is batting .408 (20-for-49) with a 1.279 OPS.

Sheets’ 55 plate appearances in that span are not enough for him to be a “qualifier.” But no MLB player with even 35 plate appearances over the last month has a higher OPS than Sheets.

“This is the best part of the season,” Sheets said. “It’s the part you want to be a part of. And if you get opportunities, every opportunity is important. And so that was my thought process (at the trade deadline).”

Still the best

Pivetta allowed three runs in five innings last night, ending a streak of eight starts in which he went at least six innings.

He had gone at least 5⅔ innings in 11 consecutive starts.

In 45 other games in that span (since June 25), the Padres got at least 5⅔ innings from their starting pitcher just 13 times.

Pivetta’s 2.90 ERA ranks seventh in the NL. His .189 average allowed leads the league.

King update

Michael King rejoined the team here after throwing a simulated game Friday against members of the Padres’ Single-A affiliate in Fort Wayne. Ind.

He declared his left knee sound.

The right-hander came back from a 2½-month stay on the injured list due to a nerve impingement near his right shoulder earlier this month. But he had some fluid built up in his knee and was shut down after making just one start, throwing 57 pitches in two innings on Aug. 9 against the Red Sox.

He had the fluid drained and has pitched in two simulated games since.

“I’m not changing mechanics anymore for it,” he said. “It probably affected command more than anything. … Not being confident landing was an issue.”

Still, the Padres seem inclined to see him do some more extensive work before he returns to the mound for them in a game.

“We’re being careful about a lot of the cutting, covering bunts, fielding bunts, backing up bases,” Shildt said. “… We’re trying to figure out the plan for the next steps.”

King will throw a bullpen early next week and could follow that with another simulated game in which his knee is tested by doing some fielding, or he could make a rehab start in a minor-league game.

If he were to start early next week against the Reds, that would give him time to make four starts in the regular season.

Sunday and beyond

Left-hander Kyle Hart will be recalled to work as a bulk reliever in today’s series finale against the Twins after David Morgan serves as the opener.

And the Padres planning to give King more time leaves an open spot in the series against the Orioles.

If the Padres remain on turn, that open spot would be Wednesday after Dylan Cease and Yu Darvish start the first two games.

It is possible Randy Vásquez, whose wife gave birth yesterday, could be recalled.

Vásquez has a 3.93 ERA in 22 starts for the Padres this season. He was recalled to pitch as a bulk reliever in the Padres’ Aug. 15 game at Dodger Stadium and optioned back to Triple-A the next day.

Like Vásquez, Hart began the season in the rotation. He had a 6.66 ERA in six starts. His last three appearances for the Padres have been out of the bullpen, and he has not allowed a run in 6⅔ innings.

Manny milestone

The first of Manny Machado’s two singles last night gave him 1,000 hits as a member of the Padres.

The only players with more hits while playing for the franchise are Tony Gwynn (3,141), Garry Templeton (1,135) and Dave Winfield (1,134).

Machado, who earlier this season passed 2,000 career hits, was unaware of his latest milestone.

“That’s cool,” he said when he found out.

Machado, whose 188 home runs are already a franchise record, was told he is tracking to finish second in hits and virtually every other category on the franchise’s all-time list.

He asked who was ahead of him. Shown the list of hits leaders, he laughed.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m not catching Gwynn.”

Gwynn played his entire 20-year career with the Padres.

Tidbits

• Morejón was credited with his 11th win of the season last night when he entered a tie game, pitched a scoreless inning and the Padres took the lead for good in the next half-inning.  That leads all MLB relievers and is tied with Rollie Fingers (1980) and Bruce Metzger (1976) for the Padres’ all-time record for wins in a season by a reliever.
• Morejón lowered his ERA to 1.75 last night. That is fourth best among the 109 MLB relievers who have pitched at least 50 innings this season. Morejón has pitched 61⅔ innings.
• Ramón Laureano was 2-for-5 with a home run yesterday. His seven home runs are tied for the most ever by a player in his first 27 games in a single season with the Padres. (Christian Villanueva hit 10 homers in his first 27 games from Sept. 18, 2017, to April 17, 2018.)
• Fernando Tatis Jr. was 1-for-3 with two walks last night and has reached base at a .423 clip in his 11-game on-base streak. He has reached base multiple times in 33 of his past 53 games (since June 29) and has over that span raised his season on-base percentage 36 points (to .372).
• Jake Cronenworth was 1-for-2 with three walks last night and is batting .500 (8-for-16) during a six-game hitting streak. Cronenworth was batting .236 with a .732 OPS on Aug. 4. He has hit .317 with a .911 OPS in 23 games since then, and he is now batting .250 with a .768 OPS on the season.
• The Padres’ seven-run seventh inning last night was tied for their second-biggest inning of the season behind the eight they scored in the fifth inning on May 10 at Coors Field. The other time they scored seven runs was Aug. 13 at San Francisco. They have scored at least five runs in seven different innings over their past 30 games. They did so just seven times in their first 106 games.
• The Padres improved to 29-31 in games in which their opponent scores first, the best such record in the major leagues. Their 47-29 record when scoring first is fourth worst in MLB, better than only the Angels, White Sox and Rockies.
• It turns out reliever Bryan Hoeing suffered a strained hamstring a few weeks ago while pitching for Triple-A El Paso, but he is close to getting back into games. He was among those who pitched to Merrill over the past few days in Arizona.

All right, that’s it for me. Early game today (10:05 a.m. PT) and then a flight home.

Talk to you tomorrow.