With a little more than three weeks left until the trade deadline, General Manager A.J. Preller is sure to be shopping for pitching this month.
His two most expensive starters are on the injured list and without a definitive timetable.
The guy expected to be the ace is slumping.
Another key arm has already thrown more innings than he ever has in the majors.
Which makes every turn that Randy Vásquez takes in the rotation a critical data point as Preller decides just how to play the chips he has left.
Just what can the Padres expect from the 25-year-old right-hander?
Starts like Friday’s would be just fine, but clearly at least one leverage bullpen arm needs to be on Preller’s list, too, even if Jurickson Profar and Machado managed to save the day again.
A half-inning after the bullpen coughed up six runs, Profar hit a game-tying homer and Manny Machado hit a walk-off, two-run homer for a 10-8 win over the Diamondbacks in front of a Petco Park-record crowd of 47,171.
It ain't over 'til Manuel Arturo Machado says it's over. pic.twitter.com/4LSUvemYtR
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) July 6, 2024
“We’re making it normal, right?” Profar said. “We’re showing who we are as a team. We’re going to do it over and over again. We’ve got guys in here. I’ve been telling you guys since Day 1, we don’t quit. We keep giving it.”
Especially of late.
The Padres had won four straight series entering the final homestand before the All-Star break. Including Friday’s dramatics, they’ve won 12 of their last 15 games and a 7-2 lead in the ninth inning looked like it would afford Padres manager Mike Shildt his primary goal after Vásquez’s quality start:
Stay away from the leverage arms that had worked the previous two wins.
“Almost at all cost,” Shildt admitted afterward.
Relievers Adrián Morejón and Jeremiah Estrada were both down. Closer Robert Suarez gave the team a thumbs up after throwing Friday afternoon if a save situation arrived and it did, unbelievably.
Shoot, Enyel De Los Santos even recorded the first out of the ninth before back-to-back singles and a walk loaded the bases, forcing Shildt to push Suarez into the game.
His first pitch to Alek Thomas: A grand slam to right to cut the Padres’ lead to a single run.
Suarez fetched another out on a groundball, but Corbin Carroll followed with a double and Randall Grichuk — pinch-hitting for All-Star Ketel Marte (back tightness) — blasted the go-ahead home run into the Western Metal Supply Co. building.
Fine.
No big deal around here.
“We’re built that way,” Machado said. “We’re going to fight until the 27th out is made.”
It never was.
Down 8-7 in the bottom of the ninth, Profar battled back from 0-2 against closer Paul Sewald to launch a game-tying homer to right. After Jake Cronenworth worked a walk, Machado pulled an 0-2 sweeper over the wall in left, setting off a raucous celebration that included a fan managing to get onto the field in front of the dugout with a cellphone in Machados’ face before he was taken to the ground by six security guards.
“I thought it was one of our guys in here celebrating with me,” Machado said after his fourth hit of the game delivered his 10th career walk-off homer. “I looked around and when I turned around he was getting tackled, man. I felt bad. I felt bad.
“Obviously it’s not a good situation for him, but he got some good footage there, for sure.”
What should have been a winning formula without all the late-inning dramatics was small ball early, rookie Jackson Merrill tripling and tying a career-high with three RBIs and Kyle Higashioka adding on in the sixth with a two-run homer.
More and more, Vásquez is contributing to that formula as 6⅓ innings of two-run ball positioned the Padres to win a third straight game that began with him on the mound.
He struck out six batters, including two after Joc Pederson led off the sixth inning with a leadoff single and one more to boot to start the seventh as Shildt asked the bullpen to protect a five-run lead.
It was Pederson who tagged Vásquez for a first-inning homer after Carroll’s leadoff double. The Diamondbacks threatened to add on in the first inning after Lourdes Gurriel’s two-out double, but Vásquez punched out Gabriel Moreno for the start of nine straight outs to settle into the game.
Including Friday’s quality start, Vásquez has a 1.76 ERA over his last three starts, all wins for the Padres.
“It’s really a combination of working on my mechanics and also working on sequencing each pitch,” Vásquez, speaking through interpreter Danny Sanchez, said of his last three starts. “Luckily I’ve been able to have good results with a combination of those two things.”
Given all the support he had in Boston, Vásquez was on his way to a win for himself in his last start when a comebacker off his right elbow knocked him from the game after four innings of one-run ball.
X-rays came back negative.
Just a lot of pain and swelling at first, enough for the Padres to push his start back a day to Friday.
But Vásquez did not have any limitations as he returned to the mound and pitched into the seventh inning for the second time in his career, both this season. He walked off the mound to a warm ovation from the record crowd.
Small ball had everything to do with Vásquez leaving with a lead.
First, Machado led off the second with a double, moved to third on a groundball from Donovan Solano and scored on another groundball from Merrill.
Two innings later, back-to-back seeing-eye singles from Cronenworth and Machado set up a four-run rally to give the Padres the lead. Both runners advanced a base on Solano’s fly ball to right-center and scored easily on the triple that Merrill pulled into the right-field corner.
David Peralta followed with a run-scoring double, Higashioka added a run-scoring single to open a 5-2 lead and the Padres catcher went deep in the sixth for his 10th homer of the season.
Nine of Higashioka’s blasts have come since June 1, tied with Merril for the most on the team over that stretch.
