Report: Padres to call up 20-year-old Ethan Salas

Campusano also singled. The 27-year-old continued his strong campaign at the plate by taking Paul Blackburn deep in the bottom of the 10th to give the Padres a much-needed win in their quest to clinch one of the final postseason berths in the National League. He’s been limited to just 56 games, but in those contests he’s now hit six homers, driven in 25 runs and slashed .283/.364/.465. You can do a heck of a lot worse than that.

Salas, who is 20 years old, is now officially the youngest player in MLB and, when the game begins today, will be the youngest player to appear at catcher in a game since Iván Rodríguez did back in October of 1991. There’s a pathway to playing time here for Salas if he can adapt quickly to MLB pitching.

This move was reported last night and is now official. Salas hit .296/.374/.448 with 10 homers and 17 steals between Double- and Triple-A this year. That came with an impressive 5.4 percent swinging strike rate, and, in 24 games at Triple-A, he posted a 95 percent zone contact rate and 42 percent hard-hit rate. It’s incredibly impressive for a hitter at his age to control the strike zone and have the feel for contact that he does. MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell reports that, while there is no set role for Salas right now, he is “expected to catch, DH and serve as a bench bat.” That makes it sound like the left-handed-hitting Salas could start a few games a week with the chance to earn more playing time if he produces.

Freddy Fermin has now started eight of 12 games behind the plate, with Campusano catching four times and DHing once during that span. Campusano is out-OPSing Fermin .904 to .568, but Fermin’s defense matters more to Craig Stammen. The Padres have gone 36-26 with Fermin starting.

Salas is hitting .377/.453/.698 with three homers and 20 RBI in 14 games since moving up to El Paso at the end of last month. It’s hard to imagine the Padres introducing him to the majors in the middle of a pennant race, but he’s back looking very much like one of the game’s best prospects.

The Padres are giving Luis Campusano a very rare start at DH with Freddy Fermin catching tonight, so there’s no room for Rengifo against a lefty. The switch-hitting Rengifo is hitting just .213/.283/.278 versus southpaws this season, though he’s at .344/.417/.469 in 37 plate appearances against them since joining the Padres and he’s been better versus lefties over the course of his career.

Campusano’s two doubles both came at great times for the Padres here. His first brought home two runs with the bases loaded in a tie game in the fifth and knocked out Guardians’ starter Gavin Williams. Then, after the Guardians scratched across a run in the sixth, Campusano’s next two-bagger gave the Padres another insurance run. He lost two months of his season to injury, but has been highly productive otherwise with a .317 batting average and .935 OPS in 145 plate appearances.

The Brewers got one in the top of the 11th, but it wasn’t enough. It initially looked like Jackson Merrill hit the game winner with one out and runners on first and third in the bottom of the inning, but right fielder Luis Lara made a fantastic leaping catch to turn it into a sac fly. After a stolen base put the winning run on second, Campusano hit a low liner to right for a clean single. Lara’s throw home seemed to be in time to retire the runner, but Gary Sánchez jumped to catch the ball when it really didn’t seem like he needed to and then couldn’t get the tag down in time. It gave the Padres a three-game sweep with two one-run victories and an 11-2 blowout.

The Padres still won’t give Campusano DH time, but at least he’s starting at catcher more frequently than Freddy Fermin right now. He’s batting .311/.410/.513 in 139 plate appearances.

Salas was one of the top overall prospects in baseball a couple of years ago, but he had a rough last few seasons in the minors. Still, he remains just 20 years old, and his previous rankings were probably aggressive. This season, in 71 games at Double-A, Salas hit .285/.359/.418 with seven home runs, 37 RBI, and 14 steals. He had just a six percent swinging strike rate and a tremendous 87 percent contact rate overall. Now we’ll see if he can do that one step away from the big leagues.