Matt Waldron was for a time a mainstay in the Padres’ rotation.
“He’s been really fantastic,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “I mean, he helped us out a lot when Joe (Musgrove) and Yu (Darvish) went down. He really stepped up and put in a lot of quality innings. He gave us a lot of games where he won, gave us a chance to win.”
But now Waldron’s first full season as a major league starting pitcher has hit a wall.
On Wednesday, he allowed more earned runs than any Padres pitcher in a home game as the Twins salvaged the teams’ three-game series finale by devastating the Padres 11-4 on an otherwise enjoyable afternoon in San Diego at Petco Park.
“It’s not a good thing,” Waldron said. “I have no positivity right now.”
With the loss and the Diamondbacks’ sweep of the Marlins, the Padres are tied for the National League’s first wild-card spot.
What’s more concerning, with 34 games remaining, is the hole that has opened up in their starting rotation at a position that, for much of the season, was so solid.
“I want to get back to that,” Waldron said. “And I think what’s hard about this sport and maybe even life is when things are negative, it’s hard to get away from it and forget what it was or what it could be or what it will be. Just forgetting — forgetting your mistakes — has been a little harder.”
The Twins’ seven-run fourth inning was the worst by any Padres pitcher this season, and the 10 runs allowed by Waldron were the most allowed by a Padres pitcher since Clayton Richard gave up a team-high 11 runs (10 earned) at Colorado on July 19, 2017.
The only other pitcher to be credited with 10 earned runs at Petco Park was Minnesota’s Joe Ryan, who did so during the Twins’ previous visit in 2022.
These things happen.
It’s a continuation of a skid in which Waldron isn’t getting enough outs and giving up too many runs that’s troubling for the Padres.
Wednesday was the fourth time in five starts that the butterfly pitcher gave up at least five runs.
The 27-year-old right-hander has a 10.50 ERA and 1.67 WHIP in those five starts, in which he has pitched a total of 24 innings.
That follows a 14-start stretch in which he had a 2.76 ERA and 0.99 WHIP, 13th and 19th best, respectively, among qualified major league starters during that span.
From May 7 to June 24, Waldron posted a 1.95 ERA, and the Padres won six of the nine games he started. The Padres went 17-19 in their other games during that span, while the rest of the rotation posted a 4.57 ERA.
There are six starts since Waldron surpassed the 113⅓ innings he pitched in the minor leagues in 2022. And at 142⅔ innings this season, he is now 3⅓ innings shy of the total he pitched between the University of Nebraska and the final two minor league levels in 2019.
This is of course a different level with different requirements.
Wednesday was his 26th start of the season and his 32nd in the major leagues.
The indicators that Waldron might be buckling under the workload are mixed. His arm has dropped and he acknowledged some mental fatigue and a little soreness in his elbow, which he said was “nothing crazy.” But the velocity and spin on his throws remain at previous levels.
“I think mentally, I just know I’ve never pitched this many innings, so I’m just getting used to that workload as a whole,” he said. “I’m not done yet. I’m not even close. The fun stuff hasn’t even started yet. So I just have to get over that.”
In addition to understanding how to handle repeated starts at the highest level, Waldron is working on how to utilize his unique core offering, the knuckleball.
“I think I belong on this court, and obviously it’s not showing right now, especially on a day like this,” he said. “Physically, I think I can do it. I think my skills definitely need to improve and maybe even rely more on the butterfly ball. I need to get back on the board. It’s going to take some serious work.”
The Padres also faced a pitcher in his first full major league season Wednesday, Simeon Woods Richardson, a 23-year-old right-hander no Padres hitter has faced in the major leagues.
Their only run in five innings off Woods Richardson came on a home run by Donovan Solano as a pinch hitter in the fifth. They added three runs in the eighth inning off Ronny Henriquez, including two on a home run by Jackson Merrill, before the Twins added a run off Jeremiah Estrada in the ninth inning.
The score was 1-0 after three innings and 8-0 after four. Waldron left the game with one out in the fifth, after allowing another run and with a man on base. That runner scored against rookie Sean Reynolds, who went on to pitch a career-high 2⅔ innings without allowing a run.
“Sean supported me,” Waldron said. “I’m glad he did, because that’s what a good team does. They support each other. I just wish I was better.”
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