Manny Machado has been the easiest punching bag in baseball for three months. Then he stepped to the plate in the tenth inning at Globe Life Field on Saturday and put one over the fence, and now the entire conversation around the Padres has shifted in a single swing.
Machado’s three-run shot in extras gave San Diego a 6-4 win over the Texas Rangers and ended a stretch where the third baseman looked completely lost at the plate. He came into the day hitting just .178. He left it with 13 home runs and a confidence level that has not budged through any of the slumps.
“The homers are there, the RBIs are there,” Machado told reporters after the game. “In key situations when I’m up there, you’ve still got to be afraid I can do damage like I did today. You see those numbers up there, you see the back of my jersey, and you’re going to know who I am.”
That is a man who has been hearing the boos and ignoring them. The .178 average tells you he is not back yet. The swing he put on a hanging slider in the tenth inning tells you he might be close.
The Padres need it. They came into Saturday at 38-36, a record that looked impossible to predict back in March when this team had World Series odds and a payroll that suggested they meant business. Instead they have been one of the most disappointing clubs in the National League, and Machado has been a big reason why.
That is the thing about elite hitters in slumps. They are still elite hitters. The book on Machado has not changed even if the numbers have. Pitchers still treat him like a problem because they have spent a decade watching him do exactly what he did Saturday night.
San Diego is not out of this thing. The National League West is wide open below the Dodgers, and a hot two-month run from Machado could change the entire shape of the playoff race. If Saturday’s swing is the start of something, the Padres are suddenly dangerous again.
The doubts about Machado were fair. He has been chasing pitches, he has been arguing with analytics, and he has not looked like the guy San Diego signed to an 11-year contract. But Saturday was a reminder that talent like his does not disappear at 32. It hides, and then it shows back up at the worst possible moment for the other team.
The Padres are still going to need more than one swing from their star third baseman to climb back into a crowded wild card race. They need 30 of them. The good news for San Diego is that the player capable of producing those 30 swings just gave them the first one when the season felt like it was slipping away.
Now we find out if Machado has been telling the truth about himself all along, or if Saturday was just one good night in a season full of bad ones. The Padres are about to find out the answer in real time, and so is the rest of the league.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
