{"id":659756,"date":"2026-04-02T23:22:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659756\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T23:22:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:22:38","slug":"padres-bench-coach-gave-craig-stammen-lineup-change-that-led-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659756\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Bench Coach Gave Craig Stammen Lineup Change That Led to Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Diego Padres bench coach Randy Knorr gave manager Craig Stammen a lineup tweak that led to the team’s 7-1 win over the San Francisco Giants<\/a> on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

The Padres manager was frustrated with figuring out a lineup that could break the team out of their early offensive slump<\/a>. Thankfully, Knorr already had a lineup ready for the series finale against the Giants. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m tired. I\u2019m not working very well on this,\u2019\u201d Stammen said after the game. \u201c[Knorr] goes, \u2018Craigger, that\u2019s good, because I had one already written up for you.\u2019 So, we\u2019re riding with Randy right now.\u201d <\/p>\n

The difference in the lineup? <\/p>\n

Fernando Tatis Jr. was back in the leadoff spot, which was perhaps the most notable move. The Padres star was projected to hit leadoff in a majority of lineup projections this offseason, but Stammen experimented with other players atop the order. <\/a> <\/p>\n

This spring, Stammen deployed Xander Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth in the leadoff spots. Bogaerts has since shifted down in the lineup. <\/p>\n

Tatis led off against left-handed pitchers early this year. Cronenworth earned the right to man the spot against right-handed pitchers. <\/p>\n

However, Knorr’s lineup had Tatis leading off against Giants right-handed starter Adrian Houser, and it paid off. <\/p>\n

Knorr also put Ram\u00f2n Laureano in the fifth spot, which put him higher in the order than he’d previously hit this season. Cronenworth and Gavin Sheets batted back-to-back at sixth and seventh, respectively. <\/p>\n

Knorr explained why he opted to tweak the order of the lefties. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just saying that instead of staggering our lefties in the middle, we put them together,\u201d Knorr said. \u201cAnd we put Laureano in a place where he could drive runs in. It just worked out.”<\/p>\n

The Padres recorded a season-high in runs and hits with the new look lineup. Moreover, the Friars scored more than three runs for the first time in 2026. The Padres hadn’t begun a season with six games of three runs or fewer since their inaugural 1969 campaign. <\/p>\n

After a sluggish start offensively, it appears the Padres lineup has finally broken through. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday was an example of what we could be, the type of team that we expected \u2014 and have,\u201d Stammen said. <\/p>\n

While Knorr’s lineup was a success, the Padres remain flexible with the batting order as the season brings highs and lows for hitters. <\/p>\n

\u201cI doubt that we\u2019ll have one lineup for the rest of the season,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cGuys will get hot, guys will get cold, and we\u2019ve got to adjust accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to our free newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>\u00a0for the latest news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Padres bench coach Randy Knorr gave manager Craig Stammen a lineup tweak that led to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-659756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-padres","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-padres","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-sandiegopadres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116337688637462003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}