Trying something; Miller gets work; Morgan’s strong return

Good morning,

It was a thought. It was unselfish and born of determination.

It didn’t work. Not much is working for the Padres at present. Close to nothing, actually.

That could be the name of their offense.

Close to Nothing.

But early on in what became a 5-0 loss to the Mets last night, Jackson Merrill tried to make something happen.

“I fault myself for it,” he said later. “I’ve been swinging a pretty good bat, I feel like, the last week. Probably on me. Should have been in there ready to swing early in the game. So probably not the smartest decision.”

He spoke of his attempt to lay down a bunt and move Ty France to second base in the second inning.

Merrill ended up popping a fastball above the zone into the air in foul territory where third baseman Brett Baty made a sliding catch for the first out. The inning was over two batters later.

“I’m not going to fault myself for attempting to bunt,” Merrill said. “Just know the situation going up there. We need something to get going. We need somebody to drive the ball in the gap, get it going.”

Sure. But that drive in the gap has not happened very often. What has happened again and again is a runner being stranded with empty out after empty out.

So was it worse that Merrill tried to be productive than what happened an inning earlier when Fernando Tatis Jr.’s leadoff single was followed by Gavin Sheets hitting a fly ball to left field and Manny Machado grounding into an inning-ending double play?

There could be more of a gripe with the pitch Merrill chose to bunt on. But it is difficult to fault him for trying something different when the same old thing has not been working.

The Padres have hardly attempted any bunts and have successfully laid down just five sacrifice bunts all season.

We can argue about the merit of giving up an out as often as Mike Shildt’s Padres did, leading MLB with 48 sacrifice bunts last season. But that team recognized its shortcomings offensively and prioritized scoring however it could.

So Merrill’s bunt went about like the Padres’ aggressive baserunning did in Washington and Philadelphia? OK. It was an unselfish attempt to try to help his team win.

That the Padres are thinking this way is a positive. And it’s not an accident.

“The players kind of banded together, saying, ‘We’ve got to try any way possible to get this thing going,” manager Craig Stammen said. “They’re talking amongst each other, they’re trying to keep their family tight and do it together. Sometimes it’s going to work, and sometimes, like today, it just didn’t come out the way that we wanted to.

“I want them to play baseball, you know, and sometimes when you’re not scoring, you get so focused on your swing and executing what you want to do in your at-bat for yourself to get yourself better numbers. And I think that’s been the message of the team — how can we do this together, how can we hang in this together, ignore the result and just go play baseball as best we can, like guys have since they were little kids? The closer we get to that, the better off we’re going to be.”

Now, none of that changes that last night’s game was another abysmal showing.

You can read in my game story (here) about Michael King allowing four runs to the only other offense that has been close to as bad as the Padres.

But even if he had stopped the damage after the solo home run he allowed in the second inning, King would have taken the loss.

The Padres had three hits and were shut out for the third time in 10 games. Their league-low batting average fell to .215, tied for fourth lowest by an MLB team 61 games into any of the past 25 full seasons.

The game story has more particulars on the Padres’ offensive woes and their six-game skid.

We will not discuss the offense any more here today. Because we have done it so much and because they either are going to start hitting or we are going to have plenty more opportunity to talk about them not hitting.

Getting some work

Closer Mason Miller threw in the bullpen after Thursday’s game in Philadelphia. He got up after the final out and began stretching and then threw as he would before entering to close out a game.

The exercise came because he had not pitched since the previous Friday.

And last night, a week after he last appeared in a game, Miller worked the top of the ninth inning with the Padres trailing 4-0.

He threw 17 pitches and allowed a run on two singles and a stolen base before being lifted with two outs.

Good restart

There is generally at least one positive to come out of even the worst game, and last night that positive was David Morgan returning and throwing two scoreless innings.

Morgan was optioned on April 30 after four consecutive rough outings and spent the past month working on some mechanical tweaks in Triple-A.

He allowed one hit and struck out two last night after being recalled earlier in the day to replace Jeremiah Estrada, who went on the injured list with right knee inflammation.

The prognosis for Estrada and a number of other injury updates are covered in my pregame notebook (here). The biggest news yesterday regarded left fielder Ramón Laureano undergoing surgery on his labrum (hip) that likely ended his season.

Another one

We talk here from time to time about the metric Stuff+, which purports to measure the nastiness of a pitchers’ arsenal by taking into account factors (such as velocity, spin, movement and release point) that make pitches difficult to hit.

A Stuff+ rating of 100 is considered average. A pitcher with a rating of 107 is considered to have “stuff” that is 7% nastier than the average big-league pitcher.

There are 30 pitchers who have thrown 40 innings this season with a Stuff+ rating of 105 or higher. The Padres have faced 14 of them (in 17 games).

Mets right-hander Nolan McLean will be the 15th when he starts against them tonight at Petco Park. McLean (107) follows Zack Wheeler (105), Aaron Nola (107) and Cristopher Sanchez (118) just this week.

Tidbits

• There were boos last night after the final out, but they were drowned out by cheers from Mets fans. The announced crowd of 42,159 was the 26th sellout in 33 home games, but it seemed significantly less full than for a usual Friday game, especially with a premium opponent in town. The Padres fell to 16-17 at home this season, and it will be interesting to see the size and makeup of the crowds if the losing continues.
• The Padres have held a lead at the end of just eight of the past 99 innings. They have trailed at the end of 67 innings in that span.
• Machado went 1-for-4 for the third straight game. Going 3-for-12 in that span has raised his batting average four points to .175.
• Xander Bogaerts was 0-for-3 last night and is batting .127 (7-for-55) with one home run over his past 16 games.
• Catcher Rodolfo Durán was 0-for-1 with two walks. That dropped his batting average to .080 (2-for-25) but raised his on-base percentage to .303.
• You can read (here) Annie Heilbrunn’s Q&A with Padres reliever Ron Marinaccio for some interesting stuff about growing up in Jersey and his time with the Yankees.

All right, that’s it for me.

I am taking the next two days off.

It is my favorite person’s sixth birthday, and we are going to have a tea party and go swimming and have a sleepover and play dress-up.

Jeff Sanders will have coverage of the remaining two games against the Mets on our Padres page.

The next newsletter will be in your inbox on Tuesday after the opener of the series against the Reds.

Talk to you then.