Padres Daily: Wild time a mile high; bunch of bullpen ballers; Tatis’ milestone; Sanchez’s streaks

Good morning,

It was quite a few days a mile high.

Bad loss. Trade deadline acquisitions. Successive victories in back-to-back bullpen games. And at Coors Field, no less.

“It’s pretty extreme,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said of the series win against the Rockies. “And this is kind of a house of horrors here too. And to go down the way we did the first night and then have all the drama and stuff of the trade deadline. Good to have a day off. A little bit exhausting at this point. But nice to finish it out with a really well-played game.”

The day off at home precedes the Dodgers coming to Petco Park for four games beginning tomorrow.

The Padres are closer to .500 than they have been since June 18 and closer to a playoff spot than they have been since June 19.

You can read in my game story (here) about the Padres’ 11-1 victory over the Rockies, in which they used five pitchers a day after using six and hit five home runs for the second time this season in a game in Denver.

We can talk more about some of those homers. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s was historic. Juan Soto’s was his third in two games and eighth in 19 games. Gary Sánchez’s two homers gave him a pair of two-homer games in the past four days. Ha-Seong Kim’s homer was his third leadoff homer in his past 16 games.

But let’s talk first about the bullpen.

Padres relievers worked all 18 innings the team played in less than 24 hours. No reliever worked in both games. One who pitched Tuesday was designated for assignment yesterday and another was placed on the injured list. Two who pitched yesterday were not with the club Tuesday.

“A lot of them out there today,” Melvin said. “… Ended up being a good game. (These are) days that you have a little bit of angst knowing that you’re gonna have to use quite a few guys in your bullpen. And there are a few of them that are down too. So it worked out.”

At the outset, Melvin knew he didn’t have Steven Wilson and Robert Suarez, who had both pitched three of the previous four days and have IL stints they recently emerged from. Melvin said Josh Hader was available in a save situation.

That didn’t happen because of all the homers and because of the work done by those who did pitch.

If you’re wondering why it was a bullpen game, you can read in my story posted before the game (here) about Joe Musgrove’s ailment that necessitated the Padres’ tack yesterday. Also in that story are details about the Padres’ roster moves (including Brent Honeywell being DFA’d and Tim Hill going on the IL) and what the team is mulling regarding designated hitter Matt Carpenter.

The workhorse

Martinez doesn’t tell pitching coach Ruben Niebla he can’t pitch on a given day. Instead, he sometimes tells Niebla not to ask.

“If they ask, I will say I can pitch,” Martinez said recently.

He certainly wasn’t going to say he couldn’t go yesterday.

“I’m just kind of up for the challenge,” he said. “I know that, given the situation, they need someone and I’m able to do that, and I still see myself as a starter. Obviously I’m not built up for it, but I felt like I was good for 35 to 40 pitches.”

On a little more than 12 hours’ notice, Martinez made his first start since April 19 and went more than two innings for the first time since May 27.

“I was originally looking at two,” Melvin said. “He came in after two and said, ‘I got a third one,’ which doesn’t surprise you — (with) what he’s able to do for us. The workload he has had has been more extreme than anybody we’ve had here.”

Than anyone anywhere.

Martinez made four starts at the beginning of the season, made his first relief appearance on April 26 and since then has made more appearances (43) than any pitcher in the major leagues. His 54 innings in that stretch are also most by any MLB reliever.

With Hader, Wilson and Suarez unavailable here Monday, Martinez got the final out of the ninth inning and pitched the 10th that night. He has pitched 11 of the past 20 days.

“That might be a mindset thing more than anything,” said Martinez, who last season became the first pitcher in MLB history to make at least 10 starts and also have at least eight saves and eight holds. “Kind of come to the ballpark ready to pitch and again, same as last year, kind of setting my priorities to kind of do whatever we can to help win. Whatever it takes. If it helps us (get) a step closer to winning a World Series, then I’m up for that.”

New level

Martinez departed after his highly efficient 38-pitch outing, and left-hander Ray Kerr assumed a 3-0 lead to start the bottom of the fourth.

It was 3-1 when that inning was over, but it could have been much worse after Kerr walked three of the first four batters he faced.

“It was all about my mindset,” said Kerr, who was recalled yesterday morning. “In Triple-A, I’m a closer most of the time. So I get ready in different innings. So it’s a different environment when I go out there. So I had to kind of boost myself up, getting myself that antsiness I like on the mound. …. So once I found that, I was like, ‘All right, we selling from here. No more thinking, let’s just throw it.’”

Kerr began mixing in his curveball after throwing his fastball nine times in his first 10 pitches. He started throwing strikes after doing so on just 10 of his first 21 pitches.

All he allowed after that was a grounder that drove in the run in the fourth and a bloop double leading off the fifth inning. He struck out six batters, including Ryan McMahon to start the sixth inning before he was pulled having thrown 56 pitches.

That was 31 more than he had thrown in any of his previous 15 big-league games and more than he had thrown since he was a starter for Seattle’s Double-A club in 2019.

“After like the 30th pitch, I was like, ‘This is kind of fun. Let’s see how far I can go,’” Kerr said. “When he told me I had McMahon (in the sixth), I was like, ‘Oh, I’m about to go out here and K this guy and then let the guy come in after and shut it down.’”

The new guy

Scott Barlow woke up at 3 a.m. CT in Kansas City and was pitching a little more than 12 hours later in Denver for wearing a new uniform.

“I knew … way ahead of time that I was going to be used, so I was mentally prepared to be in the game,” Barlow said after his 1⅔ innings following Kerr. “Didn’t know exactly what inning, but communication down in the bullpen was excellent. It worked out good.”

Barlow retired five of the six batters he faced with one reaching only one his Barlow’s error when he missed a low throw from first baseman Matthew Batten while covering the bag at first.

Barlow matched his season high by getting five outs and did it in his third game ever in the thin air of Denver.

“He got off the plane this morning and threw a couple innings for us,” Martinez said. “That ain’t easy. Here in Colorado also, kind of no time at all to adjust to the elements. And he came out there slinging it, and he looked real good.”

Young gun

Tatis has resumed doing things just a few have ever done.

Yesterday, in his 362nd game, Tatis hit his 100th career home run, making him the fourth fastest to reach the mark.

“I feel it’s still a long way to go,” he said. “But it’s a good way to get it started.”

Only Ryan Howard (325 games), Pete Alonso (347) and Sánchez (355) got to the century mark in fewer games. Aaron Judge (371) ranks just behind Tatis.

“He’s obviously a talented player,” Sánchez said. “With the talent he has, he can easily reach 500. I’m excited for him. Glad to be his teammate, and I’m just along for the ride to be his teammate.”

Tatis’ 100th homer was a ball hit a projected 444 feet to left field in the ninth inning.

“I don’t think it’s still come down,” Melvin said of the 109.3 mph blast that almost reached the walkway above the bleachers.

Tatis in 2021 became the fastest player ever to reach 50 home runs and 50 steals, doing it in his 223rd career game. That season, he also became the fifth-youngest home run champion in history when he led the National League with 42 homers.

Tatis has 69 stolen bases now. Howard had one stolen base when he reached 100 homers, Alonso had five and Sánchez four.

I wrote in a newsletter last month about what Tatis said when I asked him why he values defense and baserunning so much when he could still be thought of as one of the game’s best players based solely on his power.

“I feel like that wouldn’t be fair to my dad and the people that would have wasted their time with me, training me, teaching me this game, giving me these things that helped me,” he said. “And to God that gave me the talent. It wouldn’t be fair to everybody to not be doing everything that I’m capable of.”

His homer Sunday made him the 12th active player to reach the 100-homer milestone before his age-25 season. (Manny Machado and Soto did so as well.)

Tatis, the son of a major leaguer, showed his typical gratitude for the path he traveled to this point.

“There is a lot of work behind that,” he said yesterday. “I appreciate all the people that have helped me, given me small tips on what is hitting. This for them and for all the (work) we have put in together.”

Streaky Sanchez

Sánchez has long tended to hit home runs in bunches.

He once hit 12 homers in 15 games and another time had 10 in 14.

He has in his career had eight stretches of no more than 15 games in which he has hit at least six homers.

One of those heaters occurred when he hit six homers in his first 13 games with the Padres. Another has come as he has hit seven homers over his past 15 games.

The blasts yesterday came after he struck out in his first two at-bats to fall to 0-for-10 in the series. He also hit a two-run single in his final at-bat.

“I didn’t have a good game the first or second games in the series, even the at-bats today,” Sánchez said said through interpreter Pedro Gutiérrez. “I just stayed focused, stayed attacking the zone zone and the pitches I wanted, and everything worked.”

Sánchez is hitting a home run every 11.9 at-bats this season (14 in 167). If he were to keep up that pace, it would be the third-best home run rate of his career behind 2016 (10.1) and 2019 (11.7).

That would be a remarkable feat for a player who couldn’t get a job in the offseason and was released twice in the season’s first two months before the Padres claimed him off waivers on May 29.

“(Through) the up and downs, I’m still Gary Sánchez,” he said. “Same player. Ultimately, as long as I’m healthy and I’m able to provide to the team, be able to be on the field and contribute, good things will come.”

Tidbits

All right, that’s it for me.No game today. Talk to you Saturday.