Manny Machado homers, drives in five in victory

Machado, who certainly isn’t used to coming out of non-blowouts, was lifted for a pinch-runner after the single, which proved to be key. The next batter, Gavin Sheets, hit a grounder to shortstop Andrés Giménez against a shifted infield. Second baseman Ernie Clement, pulled over towards first, decided against trying to beat the pinch-runner, Jace Bowen, to second base, and the Jays settled for the out at first. Had Machado been running, there’s little doubt the Padres would have retired him. Bowen, though, went on to steal third and score the go-ahead run on Ty France’s sac fly. The three-hit game was Machado’s first since April and just his second of the year. It raised his average from .196 to .203, making this the first time since May 7 that he’s finished a game over the Mendoza Line. Since bottoming out at .166 last month, he’s hit .279 with eight homers and 23 RBI in his last 30 games.

The superstar third baseman was held out of action on Wednesday due to soreness in his foot after fouling a ball off of it during Tuesday’s game. It appears all is good now though, as he’s right back at the hot corner and batting cleanup against Diamondbacks’ right-hander Merrill Kelly on Thursday evening in San Diego.

Padres manager Craig Stammen told reporters X-rays came back negative on Machado’s foot after fouling a ball off it during Tuesday’s contest at Petco Park. The 34-year-old receives an extremely rare day off with Sung-Mun Song taking over at the hot corner in his absence. Fantasy managers should consider him day-to-day for now. He’s endured an abysmal first half at the plate by his usual standards, slashing .188/.282/.404 with 18 homers, 51 RBI and two steals in 374 plate appearances through 89 games.

Machado was intentionally walked with two on and two out in the fifth, after which Jack Dreyer got Gavin Sheets to ground out. He came up again with two on in the seventh, but this time there was a righty in the game, no base open and one out. He was pitched to, and he homered just over the wall in center on an 0-2 middle-middle fastball from Kyle Hurt. It was Machado’s fourth homer in eight games and sixth in 14 games.

Machado has three homers and four doubles in his last eight games. He’s still batting just .189 for the year, but things are getting better.

Machado’s 11th homer in the fourth off Grant Holmes accounted for the only run in the finale of what was an incredibly low scoring day of baseball; 24 teams combined to scored 64 runs, with no team scoring more than six runs. Seven of the 12 games saw the teams total five runs or fewer. Machado, a future Hall of Famer, is currently hitting .185/.265/.384, probably due to analytics and algorithms and Driveline, which could all be fixed if someone would hire John Smoltz as a GM and Jeff Frye as a manager.

Machado took Orioles reliever Albert Suárez deep in the ninth inning to close out a five-homer afternoon for the Padres that included blasts by Jackson Merrill, Samad Taylor, Gavin Sheets and Rodolfo Durán. The 33-year-old veteran third baseman has hit a bit of a rough patch lately, batting .196 (9-for-46) with two homers and five RBI since the start of June.

Machado has 13 hits in his last 116 at-bats because of analytics, apparently. The Padres continue to show him respect by refusing to bat him lower than fourth in the lineup, but it seems like that needs to change. He’s at just .169/.254/.342 for the season, and while a decent rebound still seems likely, it’s probably time to start thinking of him as more of a .240-.250 hitter going forward.

Neat. Machado is in such a deep funk that he’s hit a ghastly .126 in his last 30 games -- but he’s somehow still slugging .333 with seven homers over that timespan. We hope you can stomach the average at one of fantasy baseball’s weaker positions. It has not been pretty for Machado this year. Even the underlying Baseball Savant page is full of blue, suggesting he’s only underperforming his .270 wOBA by about 42 points. He’s walking more, but that’s about the only thing going well for Machado this year through two months and change.

It’s hard to blame Machado for the quiet night considering San Diego was up against Cristopher Sánchez in the middle of a consecutive scoreless streak of 50 2/3 innings. Still, it’s been a disappointing campaign to date for Machado, who has career lows across the board. His .177 BABIP gives hope that he’s simply been unlucky, but his fast-swing rate and blasts per swing are also down. This is a track record to bet on, ultimately, but his season isn’t trending in the right direction.