Padres Daily: Vásquez strikes back; Arraez’s three feat; Merrill’s timing; Machado’s slump

by Kevin Acee

Good morning,

The Padres’ offense continued to be mostly dormant, and a 2-0 victory felt like a gift wrapped in purple packaging.

My game story (here) focused on the fortuitous timing of this four-game series against the Rockies.

The other story of the night was Randy Vásquez.

He is back. He maybe never should have gone away.

But now the 26-year-old right-hander might be staying until the last out is made in a Padres game this season.

“I know they have the confidence in me to come in and do this role right now,” Vásquez said through interpreter Pedro Gutiérrez. “And when the playoffs come, if they come, I’ll be ready for whatever I’m needed.”

The lens of the playoffs is how almost everything must be viewed now.

We can pause and suggest that maybe Vásquez will not ride the El Paso shuttle next year. But for the purpose of how a rapidly maturing Vásquez can help the Padres in 2025, it is likely with three more starts in the regular season.

And then he could be used as a reliever in the postseason.

Vásquez has been a valuable member of the Padres’ rotation all season, even if their acquiring two left-handed starters at the trade deadline and jettisoning Vásquez to Triple-A didn’t serve as an endorsement.

But he has lived on the wild side, walking too many batters and allowing too many hits.

What makes him an asset now is what he has done in his two starts since being recalled.

You can certainly quibble with the significance of his allowing three runs (two earned) in six innings at Coors Field on Saturday and throwing six scoreless innings at Petco Park last night against the major leagues’ worst team.

But he did not walk a batter in either start.

“Just a good recipe, regardless of when you pitch, (is) a lot of quality strikes,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “Controlling counts is something we talk about a lot, and it’s something he has really done and is getting better at and more comfortable with.”

Vásquez threw a first-pitch strike to a career-high 86.3% (19 of 22) of the batters he faced last night. He was ahead 0-2 or 1-2 against 15 of the 18 batters who saw at least three pitches from him. Just eight at-bats against him lasted more than four pitches. He went to three balls in a count twice.

The time in Triple-A does seem to have allowed him to work on consistent mechanics. When he locates properly, his spin plays. He too often has not located the way he has his past two starts.

As Jeff Sanders wrote (here) Wednesday, Vásquez felt like he deserved to stay up in the big leagues all along.

“I did take it as a challenge,” he said last night.

Vásquez has been an effective back-of-the-rotation pitcher most of the season.

While three of his eight quality starts have come against the Rockies, he has posted a respectable 3.72 ERA over 123⅓ innings.

He generally doesn’t strike people out. His nine strikeouts last night were three more than he had ever had and were practically double his career average per nine innings.

But the 26-year-old right-hander has put the Padres in a position to win more often than not, which is effectively the only job description of a No.4 or No.5 starter.

Three feat

Luis Arraez had half the Padres’ hits and drove in half their runs last night.

It was the kind of game the Padres need more of from their No.2 hitter, who has had an oddly mercurial season.

“I need to get three hits every day,” he said. “And if I get three hits every day, I’ll help the team win.”

Last night was Arraez’s 18th three-hit game of the season, third most in the major leagues. He has also gone hitless in a career-high 44 games.

Arraez is batting .285 with a .320 on-base percentage, both of which are on pace to be career lows.

He is swinging at slightly more pitches out of the strike zone than ever before (34.1%) and making contact more both in (97.2%) and outside (93.3%) the zone. His 4.9% walk rate is the second lowest of his career.

He is also having some poor luck, as his .283 batting average on balls in play is 56 points off his career average coming into this season.

“A hard year for me,” he said last night. “No excuse. But this is baseball, man. This is baseball. I just want to get better every day. I mean, the season is not over yet. That’s the good thing. We have another opportunity every day. And then I hope I continue to do like I did today.”

Despite his off year — which has seen him bat .270 with runners in scoring position, 99 points lower than his career norm — Arraez has more plate appearances batting second in his team’s lineup than any player in the major leagues.

Once again, when the notion of his unwavering confidence in Arraez near the top of the Padres’ batting order was brought up, Shildt reacted last night as if it might be the most insane thing he has ever been asked to ponder.

“The thing about Luis, it’s like, he’s won three batting titles,” Shildt said last night. “He’s got the second- most hits in the National League. I don’t know, you know? … He’s a big part of our club. He has a lot of energy. He does a lot of good things at the top. Nothing is etched in stone forever. But, I mean, he’s done a great job. What, his 17th three hit game for the year? You’re getting as many hits as anybody in the league and as many multiple-hit games as anybody in the league, you’re doing something right.”

Shildt then said this, posed as a question: “And he’s won three batting titles? I mean, that’s pretty easy to have confidence in.”

Saying there’s a chance

It was brought up to Arraez last night that he still has time to win a fourth consecutive batting title.

“It’s never (too) late,” he said. “So let’s see when I finish the season.”

Arraez currently sits sixth in the NL, 20 points shy of league leader Trea Turner. And the Phillies star is on the injured list with a hamstring strain that could keep him out through the end of the regular season.

If Turner did not return and none of the four players between him and Arraez got hot enough to pass him, it would still take an unprecedented closing stretch by Arraez.

Even matching the best 15-game span of his career (28-for-57) would leave Arraez one point shy of Turner.

Good timing

Jackson Merrill has been sidelined a total of 50 days over three stints on the injured list this season.

Here is what his 2025 has looked like:

That has made it difficult for him to stay in a rhythm and to identify opposing pitchers’ adjustments to him and put into action his adjustments.

Last week in Colorado, he spent a lot of time working on his timing, staying back, staying short with his swing and driving through his swing.

“I’ve found a couple things that I’ve made adjustments,” he said last night. “I’m notably a later hitter. I catch (pitches) deep. So yeah, timing is one of the things.”

At least for a span of five games, the result of his efforts has been a surge of extra-base hits.

Last night, Merrill sent a sinker up and on the outer edge of the plate to the seats beyond left field with one of his seemingly effortless strokes.

Jackson Merrill goes the opposite way to double the @Padres lead pic.twitter.com/bV2ul7XDBM

— MLB (@MLB) September 12, 2025

“That’s me,” he said. “Opposite-field hitting is what I’ve done since I was eight years old.”

The homer was Merrill’s 11th of the season and second in five games, both to left field. He also has two doubles and two triples in that span.

The burst of production has raised his season average five points (to .259) and his OPS 14 points (to .744).

Said Shildt: “Him driving the ball all over the ballpark and playing like he’s capable is definitely a big boost for us.”

Invisible Manny

Manny Machado last night went hitless for a fourth consecutive game and is batting .093 (4-for-43) over his past 11 games.

We have talked about his struggles quite a bit lately, and we probably will continue to touch on it until he pulls out of what is arguably the worst slump of his career.

“The game can get you in a spot that it can be a little challenging at times, simple as that,” Shildt said. “The fact of the matter is, he’s still Manny Machado who’s an All-Star and Gold Glover and the heart of our team. So he’s going to be just fine. We’ll look up and it’ll be a blip on the radar.”

That’s the thing.

Machado’s skids generally can be described as blips.

He has had a lower batting average over an 11-game stretch just once in his career — during his awful finish to 2019. He has never had a lower on-base percentage than the .133 he is carrying over the past 11 games.

But this is not a blip:

All of those numbers are Machado’s lowest or second lowest over any 38-game span in his 14-year career. The OPS is 45 points lower than his previous worst 38-game span.

Since Aug. 1, Machado’s 56 wRC+ ranks 168th among 174 qualifying players. His 144 wRC+ was 11th highest in the major leagues through July 31 (109 games).

This is just the fifth time since 2020 he has gone four games without a hit, and it is the first time since 2017 and second time in his career he has not reached base at all over a four-game span.

Machado has gone hitless in five consecutive games once as a member of the Padres — from May 12 to June 2, a stretch interrupted by a stay on the injured list with a fracture in his hand. He has never gone five games without reaching base.

Tidbits

The Padres have maneuvered their rotation to give their starting pitchers an extra day (at least) before their next start. Jeff Sanders’ story (here) explains how JP Sears will be recalled to start tonight, pushing Dylan Cease to Friday, Yu Darvish to Sunday and Michael King to Tuesday. The Padres’ starters have generally been going on four days’ rest. Cease and Darvish will start this weekend after five days’ rest. Nick Pivetta, King and Vásquez will make their next start on six days’ rest.
Last night was the Padres’ 16th shutout of the season and their first since July 30. Vásquez has been the starting pitcher for three of those, tied with Stephen Kolek for second most behind Pivetta’s five. Among the Padres starters to have made at least six starts, only Nestor Cortes and Cease have not been part of a shutout.
Padres pitchers did not walk a batter last night for the second time in four games. They have a 4.9% walk rate over those four games after walking 10.2% of the batters they faced in the 13 games before that.
Jeremiah Estrada participated in his ninth shutout of the season, tied with Jason Adam for most on the team.
With two strikeouts last night, Estrada now has 99 on the season, seven more than any other NL reliever and two fewer than MLB leader Bryan Abreu of the Astros.
Mason Miller also struck out two of the three batters he faced last night, becoming the sixth MLB reliever with 90 strikeouts this season.
Robert Suarez made his 200th career appearance last night, all of them with the Padres. He took nine pitches to get through the ninth inning and secure his 37th save, which is seven more than any other NL reliever.
Ramon Laureano was 0-for-3 with a walk and is reaching base at a .360 clip during a season-high 12-game on-base streak.
Merrill’s home run trot of 18.25 seconds was the fastest of his career and the fastest by anyone at Petco Park since 2023.
Machado committed his 16th error last night, which is tied with Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero for most among third basemen. Machado also made two excellent plays in the third inning.
This is sort of amazing to consider: The Padres reached 80 victories last night for just the 20th time in franchise history.