Jeff Sanders

1 week ago | sandiegouniontribune.com | Jeff Sanders

Logan Gillaspie boarded the Padres’ charter to Houston on Wednesday with the rest of his teammates. Maybe he spends the entire birthday weekend at Daikin Park. Maybe a phone call wakes him up before daybreak on Saturday or Sunday. Maybe he’s pulled into the manager’s office after covering multiple innings on a given day. It won’t matter much to the 28-year-old Bakersfield native.

1 week ago | sandiegouniontribune.com | Jeff Sanders

Top prospect Leo De Vries was scratched from Wednesday’s lineup after he was struck by a ball in the head during pre-game batting practice at high Single-A Fort Wayne. The 18-year-old shortstop is expected to return to the lineup on Thursday. He was removed from Wednesday’s lineup out of an “abundance of caution,” a Padres team official said, after De Vries cleared concussion protocol.

1 week ago | sandiegouniontribune.com | Jeff Sanders

Oscar Gonzalez knows what postseason baseball feels like. Three years ago, he has Progressive Field rocking. His walk-off home run off Corey Kluber in the 15th inning eliminated the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL Wild-Card Series and sent a crowd of 34,971 into a frenzy. A couple thousand more fans had filed into the Guardians’ home park a week later when his walk-off single for a 2-1 series lead over the Yankees gave them even more to cheer.

1 week ago | sandiegouniontribune.com | Jeff Sanders

A right hamstring strain had delayed Kavares Tears’ debut until Tuesday. He made sure to appropriately announce the start of his career. The 2024 fourth-rounder homered in his professional debut in low Single-A Lake Elsinore’s 4-3 loss in Fresno. The Padres lauded Tears upside as a power-hitting prospect when they selected him last July out of Tennessee, where he hit 20 homers for the national champion Vols.

1 week ago | sandiegouniontribune.com | Jeff Sanders

Jackson Merrill (hamstring) did some bunting on the field on Tuesday, the early stages of beginning to ramp up baseball activity. But he has not yet begun to jog. Brandon Lockridge could, however, begin to do some light jogging as soon as Wednesday as he reported significant improvement with his hamstring strain, to the point where he’s relatively hopeful that he’ll be “good to go” on Day 11 of his injured-list stint. In the meantime, the Padres need a center fielder.