San Diego Padres manager Mike Shildt likes to call his team the “Grit Squad”. When they started the season 14-3, grittiness was not really needed. When they beat the Colorado Rockies 21-0, grit was not what they relied on. During points of this season, the Padres slugged and ran and defended themselves into impressive and overwhelming games.

During the past month the grittiness that Shildt has referred to has shown itself more noticeably. Their record of 14-13 for the past month has consisted of losing streaks, come-from-behind wins, multiple games where they were shut out and very few lopsided victories.

Machado and Tatis Jr.

Third baseman Manny Machado has had an outstanding month, he leads the team with a .344 average and a .937 OPS. He has four home runs and 13 RBI over that time. On the other side, right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. has had one of the worst stretches of his career. His .200 average with a .659 OPS includes five homers and 10 RBI. There was only one other period close to this and that was in 2023 when he had a stretch of 28 days hitting .182 with a .562 OPS.

Average offense

With the exception of Elias Diaz, Martin Maldonado and Xander Bogaerts, the starting position players all have an OPS+ of over 100 for the season. Their team OPS+ is 95 so far. The team batting average of .248 for the season is just slightly above the league average of .244. The team batting average of .240 over the last month is only slightly below the season average but ranks 21st in MLB.

Noticeable needs

There remain two glaring issues to be resolved before the trade deadline. The Padres must resolve the left field position and solidify the bench. They are currently using Gavin Sheets, Brandon Lockridge and Tyler Wade to fill in but need a permanent solution. Luis Campusano was brought up to serve as the right-handed DH and pinch hitter. Since his arrival on May 24, he has had seven at-bats with five strikeouts and two walks with no hits. That is a waste of a roster spot and needs to be resolved.

Grit Squad

With the production of Gavin Sheets, seven home runs and 20 RBI, over the month and with the consistency of Machado, the Padres have played good fundamental baseball. Solid defense, good base running and effective small ball combined with mostly solid pitching has equaled the grit squad formula that Mike Shildt began installing into his players during the spring and has carried them to a winning record despite significant offensive struggles during the past month.

There are plenty of stats to show how significant their May issues have been but when manager Shildt tells the fans and media, “winners find solutions”, you can point to the example of the past two games against the San Francisco Giants. The Padres won both games in extra innings despite very limited offense prior to the eighth and ninth innings. The outstanding play of bench player Jose Iglesias in Monday’s game and the offense and defense of Manny Machado in Tuesday’s game complemented overall good play from the entire team to give them team victories highlighted by outstanding efforts from two individuals.

The team has an overall record of 35-24, eleven games over .500 and one game behind the NL West leaders (Dodgers). They started really hot, have stumbled over the last month and it is not unreasonable to expect the team to rebound to something in the middle between the two. Considering the events since the beginning of the season, adopting the mantra- winners find solutions-seems a reasonable approach for the personality of this team.

This article was written before tonight’s loss in game three of the series vs. the Giants.