Manny Machado is hitting .182 with a .617 OPS as the Padres absorb a broader offensive slowdown. Even as he points to effort and coaches for fixes, the numbers—and the way he runs routine grounders—have the questions circling: is this a temporary skid or the s
The Dodgers got the kind of night Manny Machado usually provides: a loud moment early, when he launched a two-run homer in the first inning into the far reaches of center field at Petco Park. Yet the score didn’t hold. The Padres lost 5-4 on Tuesday night.
For Machado, the homer didn’t change the broader reality he’s been living in for weeks. This season he’s batting .182 with a .339 slugging percentage and a .617 OPS. His 73 OPS+ puts him well below league average, with 100 representing that benchmark.
Machado was asked about what’s behind it, and he didn’t try to dress it up. “I’m a baseball player, I’m not a theorist,” he said. “You got something for me?”
Instead, the discussion slid toward something visible—something fans can spot without a stat table. There’s been talk around Machado’s habit of jogging through routine plays. When asked about that approach, it became clear he doesn’t see it as neglect. A grounder to short? He jogs, not sprints.
“That’s my sprint,” Machado said. “I touch first base. What else do you want me to do? I don’t know what you’re referring to. Running to first base is running to first base. There’s guys like [Chandler] Sampson [of the Rays]; he runs to first base just like I do.”
Not exactly. Machado takes between 4.3 to 4.5 seconds to run from the right side of the plate to first base, which is above the league average of roughly 4.15 seconds. Sampson, using Machado’s own comparison, runs to first base in 3.64 to 3.90 seconds.
Machado also pushed back on the idea that analytics should be the authority on effort. “Act like a scout,” he said.
Padres manager Craig Stammen offered his own view when the question came up about whether Machado has permission to not go all-out on grounders. “Manny posts every day,” Stammen said. “That’s what I respect about him.” Stammen added, “It’s not about looks. It’s about production.”
That’s where the slump circles back to the main concern. The calendar is moving toward Memorial Day, and the question is starting to sharpen: is this a strange anomaly, or is Machado—33 years old and in his 15th season—at the beginning of a serious decline?
Baseball Savant’s numbers point toward decline. In the three seasons since 2023, Machado’s bat speed has fallen from 76.7 mph to 71.7 mph right now. His fast swing rate dropped from 66.3 mph to 37.2 mph now. At that rate, the report says, it becomes almost impossible to chase 95-mph pitches.
And when contact quality slips, production follows. Machado is tied for 49th in the league in homers and 103rd in RBIs. That doesn’t match the contract the Padres are carrying: $31.8 million a year for luxury tax purposes, with the Padres indebted to him at that rate through the 2033 season.
Machado says he’s working with the coaches. “We’ve been working on some stuff,” he said. But he wouldn’t break down what that “stuff” looks like. “I’m not going to tell you that,” he said. “That’s for me to continue to work on. You don’t need to know that.”
He also insisted the effort is real—even if it doesn’t make it into highlight reels. “No one sees the extra swings in the cage and extra ground balls I take,” Machado said.
Still, Machado’s slump isn’t happening in isolation. The Padres are dealing with a broader power and offensive outage. The team is at the bottom or near the middle of the league in batting average (.222), OPS (.664), home runs (49), and runs scored (200).
Tuesday night’s lineup made the problem feel even more immediate. The Padres finished the game with 10 players in the lineup hitting under or just above .250, and three under .200, including Machado.
The strange part is where that leaves the standings. Somehow, the Padres are 29-19 and playing nip and tuck with the Dodgers for first place in the National League West. “That’s simply not sustainable over the course of a 162-game season,” the concern reads right in the middle of the season’s math.
Power is especially conspicuous elsewhere in San Diego. Fernando Tatis Jr. still hasn’t hit a homer and is earning $24.3 million this season. He leads the league with 50 hard hit outs—line drives that are finding gloves rather than open green spaces.
Machado is the acknowledged leader in a team that doesn’t have a captain in the mold of Aaron Judge with the Yankees. The Padres are built around him and his 11-year, $350 million contract.
For now, that leadership is more about endurance than correction. Machado knows the season moves in phases. and he believes other parts of the offense will have to come back online. “We just have to play our game,” he said. “Take it day by day. Prepare. Go out there every day and compete. We’ve been doing a good job of it as a ballclub. It’s been fun to be a part of it.”.
He pointed to the only metric that can’t be debated. “We’re winning ball games; that’s the most important part.”
Then he offered a line that sounded like both reassurance and warning about what’s missing right now. “I know where I’m going to be by the end of the season,” Machado said. “Other guys have been carrying the load that we haven’t right now. There will come a time and place where we replace them.”
Manny Machado slump Padres offense Petco Park Dodgers Padres OPS+ 73 Baseball Savant bat speed fast swing rate 37.2 mph Memorial Day Padres