The Padres score kept coming in Seattle, and by Sunday night they had turned a week of offense questions into a three-game sweep of the Mariners at T-Mobile Park. What had looked uncertain just days earlier ended with San Diego taking the series and leaving its hitters with a much cleaner answer than the one they had a week ago.
Craig Stammen said Friday afternoon the Padres were trying to figure out their offense a week into the season. By Sunday night, after the sweep, he said the club had finally gotten it right for a couple days. Steven Souza Jr., the team’s 10th hitting coach in 13 seasons, put it more simply: the Padres drive the ball when they do not try to do too much.
That was the payoff after a month or so of work inside the organization. Hitting coaches and others examined how they were presenting information to hitters, considered organizing hitters’ meetings differently and even looked at altering the terminology they use when they talk to players. The conversation was not just about mechanics. It was about whether the message itself was landing the way the Padres wanted it to land.
Souza said Friday that he was the head hitting coach and that he was responsible for the offense. Stammen did not let the burden stop with him. He said it was not about Souza as a hitting coach, but about all of them collectively, calling it their hitting department and their problem. “We’re struggling,” he said, before adding, “Who is to blame?” and answering his own question: “We’re all to blame.”
The frustration came against the backdrop of a lineup that had been near the bottom of the major leagues in almost every significant offensive category. That made the Seattle series matter beyond the standings or the box scores. A club that had spent much of the early season searching for signs of life finally produced enough of them to sweep a division opponent on the road, and it did so after a string of internal conversations about how the message to hitters should change.
Still, the Padres also made clear where they think the final responsibility lies. Manny Machado said it was the players. “The players on the field hit or don’t hit,” he said, adding that the group gets the information and then decides what to do with it. Nick Castellanos was even more direct in defending Souza on Saturday, describing him as someone who cares deeply, prepares, has the right information and goes above and beyond to give it to the players.
Castellanos also pushed back on the idea that a hitting coach should carry all the blame. He said hitting is the hardest thing to do in sports and called a hitting coach the most volatile job in a baseball organization. That is the reality the Padres are living with now: the coaches can adjust the presentation, meetings and language, but once the game starts, the swings belong to the players.
For now, the payoff is tangible. The Padres leave Seattle with a sweep, a clearer offensive approach and a reminder that the fixes do not always require a new idea so much as a better way to deliver the one already in place. The next test is whether they can keep driving the ball once the pressure to do too much returns.
