October Blueprint: How to Handle Fernando Tatis Jr. and the Padres Offense

[Jake McKibbin]

Image courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

As we prepare for the Brewers' NLDS showdown with San Diego, we’ve covered how the Padres may look to silence the Brewers’ key hitters. Now, let’s turn the tables and review how the Brewers plan to get on top of their counterparts in the Padres’ order.

Four sluggers are likely to pose the greatest danger. Since July 1, Fernando Tatis Jr. boasts a 157 wRC+. Ty France is the San Diego version of Jake Bauers, with a 147 wRC+. Jackson Merrill has a 141 wRC+, and Manny Machado (though not on the same level, as he begins to decline with age) is still capable of hurting you, with a 111 wRC+.

Gavin Sheets has cooled off in a big way in the second half, but he still has the thump to change a game, as Abner Uribe saw in May and the Cubs saw on Wednesday night. Even Xander Bogaerts has been about a league-average hitter since July 1. This is a potent offense, and the top half of the order will have a huge say in how this series turns out. So, how do the Brewers go about slowing them down?

Fernando Tatis Jr.: Keep The Rockets On The Ground

Tatis has experienced a season of two halves. After inexplicably closing his stance in the first two months of 2026 and failing to hit a home run until May 30, Tatis reverted to his old setup and immediately took off. Since July 1, he's slashed .295/.372/.563, once again resembling the superstar and perennial MVP candidate of his younger days. (Of course, it's not like he's old; he won't turn 28 until January.)

Pitching to Tatis is similar, in some ways, to pitching to 2018 Christian Yelich. He has prodigious raw power and great strike-zone coverage, with a slightly passive approach. When he inevitably smokes the ball, you have to hope it's on the ground and not pulled in the air.

The one weakness in Tatis's profile is how he elevates the ball. He has a below-average launch-angle sweet-spot rate (i.e., how regularly a hitter finds the optimal launch angle for a batted ball), and keeping the ball on the ground is the best way to contain him. He will square up balls, but if you can keep those hard-hit balls in the dirt and out of the air, you have a chance to subdue the rest of this offense.

How do you keep the ball on the ground? It sounds simple, but it may not be, especially for the Brewers' two front-line starters. Both Logan Henderson and Jacob Misiorowski build their arsenals around the high fastball. That's something Henderson may have to be a little more cautious about with Tatis. Typically, if you can encourage Tatis to swing at a pitch down in the strike zone, you have a just-under-60% chance of getting a ground ball. That has to be the aim.

For pitchers with sinkers and cutters as their primary fastballs—especially right-handers—working down in the zone with those pitches is a great choice. Tatis has barreled up four-seam fastballs at an extremely high rate. However, that rate has dropped when facing sinkers and cutters, again pointing toward how much he enjoys the high fastball, in particular. He's likely to see plenty of those pitches in Games 1 and 2.

The other weapon against Tatis is velocity. He has struggled with high-velocity fastballs, notably those above 98 miles per hour. He's still put the ball in play hard, but he's found himself late on those pitches to the point where he's pounding them into the ground, with an average launch angle of -3°. That should play into the hands of Misiorowski and the Brewers' late-inning bullpen arms. Here's how the Padres have fared as a team against pitches above 98 MPH since they turned the corner in July:

Ultimately, there isn't some magic formula for slowing down Tatis. He'll take his hacks, and when he gets a pitch he can handle, he's capable of doing serious damage. For the Brewers, the key is limiting those opportunities. Keep the ball down, particularly with the sinker and cutter, and force Tatis to beat you on the ground. If you've got 98+ MPH in the tank, that's another weapon worth using, but the one thing Milwaukee can't afford is leaving pitches over the heart of the plate.

Ty France: A Game Of Cat and Mouse

Ty France hit .295/.363/.502 this season and has been one of the only Padres hitters to remain consistent throughout the year. As you can see from the leaderboard above, velocity is no problem for France. He has a short, compact swing with enough bat speed to get the barrel to the ball, and that ability to consistently find the barrel has been a big reason for his success. France has also been fortunate this season, though, with a 46-point difference between his actual and expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA), according to Baseball Savant, ranking him fifth in baseball in that regard.

France is a free swinger. He will swing and miss, and he will chase, but that's the trade-off for catching the ball out in front with more regularity than most. The combination of consistent hard contact and an exceptional rate of finding optimal launch angles makes that approach dangerous. France starts his bat early, allowing him to catch up to high velocity quicker than most hitters.

The key with France is exploiting that chase rate, something we saw happen more often down the stretch:

Even when chasing, France does a good job of staying alive. He lets the ball travel more with two strikes, with a 2.4-inch difference in average contact point between early counts and two-strike ones that's much greater than the league norm. That's where the cat-and-mouse game comes in: you can get France to chase, but you still have to execute. Hang one, and he has the ability to crush it.

Interestingly, four-seam fastballs are one pitch France has struggled to barrel—unlike much of the rest of this Padres offense—and he's shown some swing-and-miss up in the zone. Velocity doesn't trouble him in hittable locations, but if you can keep the four-seamer up, there's an opportunity to get him to chase or miss. The Brewers don't necessarily need to overpower France; they need to get him to chase pitches he can't do damage with.

The challenge with France is that simply getting him to chase isn't enough. He has the barrel control to turn a lot of those swings into productive contact, even when he's reaching outside the zone. The Brewers need to be patient and precise: get France to expand the zone, particularly with pitches he can't drive, while using the four-seamer up when they have the right count and location. Give him something he can get the barrel to, and he'll make you pay. Get him chasing pitches he can't handle, and suddenly that free-swinging approach becomes a weakness you can leverage.

Jackson Merrill: A Streaky Free Swinger

Merrill is a more potent, more streaky version of France. One of the most frequent swingers in baseball, Merrill gets some advantages from that approach, catching up to velocity without much trouble and damaging baseballs with impunity when he's on time and swinging at the right pitches. The key with Merrill is to keep him off balance and be unpredictable, because (unlike France) he will swing and miss if you can encourage him to expand the zone.

One thing is for sure: Merrill isn't at the plate to take a walk. He wants to slug. If you want to reduce that slugging output, pitching him inside and attacking the inner third of the plate is a good place to start. Four-seamers—especially on the inner third—have been very successful, and Merrill can swing and miss against them. There is a danger, though: if he's on time, he'll barrel that ball up. In that way, he's similar to the Brewers' Jackson Chourio.

Cutters on the inner third have also been very effective against Merrill, while sweepers in and changeups away from right-handers have worked as he tries to sell out for the fastball. Taken together, Merrill is a dangerous hitter, but he's also one you can pitch to. Falling behind in the count is dangerous, but pitchers can't be afraid of walking him. Attack him inside with the fastball, and if you get ahead, attack him similarly to Yelich w,ith breaking balls down and in. Most importantly, be comfortable nibbling. Leaving anything over the meat of the plate, especially up, is asking for trouble.

For the bullpen, being able to play the matchup against Merrill gives the Brewers another avenue. Against left-handed pitching, Merrill has performed better on the surface, but his overall ability to damage the ball in the strike zone falls off. Against southpaws, his expected slugging looks more like this:

Merrill is probably the clearest example of a hitter where command will dictate the outcome of the at-bat. The Brewers don't need to be afraid of his swing, but they do need to make sure he's swinging at their pitches, rather than his. Get ahead, make him expand, and attack the areas where his long swing can be exploited. But miss over the middle, particularly up in the zone, and Merrill has the kind of bat speed and power to make one mistake hurt. It's a fine line, but if Milwaukee can stay on the right side of it, Merrill's aggressive approach can work against him.

Manny Machado: Selling Out For Fastballs

Machado has 84th-percentile bat speed, great zone coverage, and good bat-to-ball skills. He doesn't need to sell out for fastballs. Yet, that's exactly what he does, particularly preying on fastballs that aren't elite pitches on their own. You can see from the Tatis breakdown how much Machado struggles with elite velocity. He can still make contact, but the quality of that contact isn't great. Then again, you could say the same for most of Major League Baseball. Machado is likely to see plenty of that velocity in this series against the Brewers.

In terms of hard-hit rates, there's a lot of blue on the right-hand side against anything that isn't a fastball. If it is a fastball, however, Machado can turn and burn with the best of them. How he approaches Henderson, in particular, will be fascinating, but also note the struggles in terms of barrel rate against sinkers—something I'll come back to in the next section. Machado is preying on four-seam fastballs and cutters, essentially daring pitchers to leave something he can handle in his wheelhouse and almost cutting his strike zone in half to do so:

If the Brewers can consistently work Machado away, using a heavy diet of breaking pitches, they should be able to find some success against the veteran slugger. Like the hitters above, Machado is more than capable of making good contact even when he chases outside his comfort area. The more pitches he sees, the more likely he is to eventually get something in his wheelhouse, and that's Machado's goal in every at-bat. He knows his approach well, and the Brewers need to be disciplined, because he's another slugger who can punish even a small mistake. Force him to cover the outer third of the plate, make him do damage the other way, and the Brewers will be well on their way to containing Machado.

Dustin May: The Right Arsenal For This Lineup

One of the biggest questions about this series has been who should start for Milwaukee on the mound, beyond Misiorowski and Henderson. Maybe an unlikely answer lurks in the data. The Padres' run value per 100 pitches shows some intriguing differences compared with the Brewers. Most notably, San Diego has generated a lot of value against four-seam fastballs, while sinkers and cutters have caused them trouble.

Negative scores are negative results; the dichotomy between how the Brewers have handled cutters compared with the Padres is particularly interesting. Add curveballs into the mix, and Dustin May could be a very interesting force in this series.

May has faced the Padres twice this season—once with the Cardinals in May and again with the Brewers in August. In May, he went nine innings, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out nine. In August, he went seven innings, allowing four hits and two walks while striking out six. Across those 16 innings, he allowed just one earned run.

The more interesting part for me is how May got those results. His start for the Brewers featured a lot of ground balls, with Padres hitters repeatedly swinging over the top of his sinker. That's exactly the kind of contact May wants to generate against this lineup. He's also featuring his curveball more in recent outings, giving him another weapon that plays into a weakness we've already identified.

On paper, May presents a fascinating matchup for this Padres lineup. The Padres want to do damage against fastballs, while their hitters have struggled to consistently handle sinkers, cutters and breaking balls. May has already shown he can get this group to beat the ball into the ground, and if his sinker and curveball are both working, Milwaukee may have a pitcher whose strengths line up particularly well with San Diego's weaknesses.

Ultimately, there isn't one way to attack this Padres lineup. Tatis needs to be kept on the ground, France needs to be coaxed into chasing without giving him something he can barrel, Merrill needs to be kept off balance, and Machado needs to be denied the fastballs he's looking to punish. That puts a premium on command and pitch selection for the Brewers. There will be plenty of swings and plenty of hard contact along the way, but if Milwaukee can consistently force these hitters away from their preferred areas, the individual strengths of this lineup become a little easier to manage. May has already shown what that can look like. Now, the Brewers need to find a way to replicate it in a playoff series.

View full article

[Frisbee Slider]

Dustin May is the way. 

Thanks for this article, Jake!

[Jake McKibbin]

My pleasure man! This was a fun one to write, hopefully two more to come in October 👀

[CheezWizHed]

Nice write-up.  Interesting catch on May.  I figured he'd get one start... either #3 or #4.  Did you look at how Gasser lines up?  

[Jake McKibbin]

4 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

Nice write-up.  Interesting catch on May.  I figured he'd get one start... either #3 or #4.  Did you look at how Gasser lines up?  

Not specifically, he does have a similar arsenal in terms of the three fastball split, but as mentioned Tatis and Machado feast on sub 95 fastballs, and that would concern me if the command isn't on point 

Either way, Gasser/May are bulk options in one of game 3/4, but I think that's one of the reasons May has been successful so far, inducing a lot of ground balls in his starts this season 

[CheezWizHed]

16 minutes ago, Jake McKibbin said:

Not specifically, he does have a similar arsenal in terms of the three fastball split, but as mentioned Tatis and Machado feast on sub 95 fastballs, and that would concern me if the command isn't on point 

Either way, Gasser/May are bulk options in one of game 3/4, but I think that's one of the reasons May has been successful so far, inducing a lot of ground balls in his starts this season 

Yeah, I couldn't remember what FB Gasser threw.  I knew he had a lot more breaking stuff and kept his FB out on the edges (when pitching well).