COMEBACKERS: Skenes steels Padres, a nightmare eighth, Machado’s walks

Yesterday the San Diego Padres dropped a 7-1 decision to the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park. Should The Sporting Tribune miss putting up a game story for an away game, the next day will have the new ‘Comebackers’ feature, which will highlight three main points from the game.

Padres get Skenes’d

The numbers for the 2025 NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes look funky because of an ‘everything that could go wrong went wrong’ opening day at the Mets. The season is young, but his 6 1/3 innings with two hits, one being Xander Bogaerts’ home run for San Diego’s (5-6) lone run, with six strikeouts and two walks, is his best start of the season.

Playing in conditions (temperature into the 30s and breezy) that Yinzers are used to but probably still grumble about, Skenes threw 14 first pitch strikes to the 23 batters he faced, with 10 called strikes and four on contact. Aside from Manny Machado’s walk to start the second, Jake Cronenworth’s freebie to start the sixth were the only two lead off men San Diego got aboard against the Pittsburgh (7-4) starter, who didn’t face a RSIP situation until the six inning and promptly got out of it with a double-play.

With the Padres offense looking to get on a roll after the 13 runs between the Red Sox series finale and the Pirates series opener, yet still statistically in the bottom sixth of the league in major offensive categories, everything set up perfectly for Skenes.

And less than two weeks removed from the Padres opening the season against 2025 AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal and the Tigers.

An unfortunate eighth inning

Adrian Morejon had two games similar to his line of 1/3 an inning pitched with five hits and five runs (four earned) allowed and a strikeout: the 7-3 home win over the Cardinals on, and the 12-3 loss at the Yankees on May 6, 2025.

The night in the Bronx was the more impactful one, as Morejon’s 1/3 an inning pitched with three hits and four runs all earned and a walk kicked off a 10-run inning for New York after San Diego had just taken a 3-2 lead in the top half. Against the Cardinals his no outs earned, four hits, three runs and a walk just meant Robert Suarez had to come in and seal the deal.

Against the Pirates, Morejon’s biggest issue was he couldn’t miss bats — the Pirates whiffed just twice on the 11 pitches they offered on of Morejon’s 16 strikes on 20 pitches. The biggest change in whiff rate thus far among his three main pitches has been on his slider, where it was 38.3% last season vs. 25% this year.

It’s been a tough start to the season for Morejon, who has allowed runs in his past three appearances after not doing so since his first three of 2024.

Walk Like A Manny

Machado extended his on-base streak to seven games thanks to drawing the walk in his first plate appearance of the game, giving him 11 over the first 11 games. As one would expect, it is the most he’s drawn to this point in a season over the course of his career.

His .400 OBP is the highest on the Padres and ranks 13th in the National League. Considering Machado’s batting average currently sits at .206 and the next closest of the 12 above him is Milwaukee’s Brice Turang sitting at .270, the walks have made a difference as Machado leads the NL and is tied for fourth in the Majors.

A big part has been dropping his O-Swing%, or percentage of pitches he swings at outside the ABS strike zone, to 22.8% from a  29.8% mark in 2025. Over the previous five seasons, his previous low was 28.8% in 2021.

One would certainly like to see more than seven hits and four RBI from Machado, those numbers rank tied for fifth and tied for third on the Padres, he’s making the most of what the games have presented him.

Case in point, this crazy number: Machado has had just four at bats with runners in scoring position thus far.

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San Diego looks to take the series by giving the nod to Michael King (1-0, 3.38 ERA), while Pittsburgh counters with right-hander Mitch Keller (1-0, 1.50) ERA. The Padres have the opportunity to finish with a winning record on their first multi-series road swing of the season — the Brown and Gold have finished with an even record or better over their first road trip of at least six games since the 2018  campaign. First pitch at PNC Park is scheduled for 9:35 a.m. PT.