The Padres are heading into the second half with a .500 record, which has all but shut the door on the NL West race and left them hanging around the edge of the Wild Card picture. That’s not exactly the kind of position San Diego wanted, but with the pitching staff taking so many hits from injuries, it’s also not a total collapse. Still, if the Friars want to push themselves into buyer territory at the trade deadline, they need to come out of the break scorching.
One of the clearest ways to do that is to keep Luis Campusano in the lineup as often as possible.
The 27-year-old catcher was scratched from the final game of the first half because of abdominal soreness, but before that he had essentially taken over as the Padres’ primary catcher while Freddy Fermin was out. Campusano also missed roughly two months with a fractured toe, yet when he has been on the field in 2026, he’s been one of San Diego’s most productive hitters by a wide margin.
Among Padres players with at least 80 plate appearances, Campusano leads the team in wRC+ at 168, in OPS at .966, and in ISO at .271. He’s also fifth on the club in fWAR at 1.0, even though he has played far less than most of the roster.
181 wRC+, 1st
.435 wOBA, 1st
1.022 OPS, 1st
He's already accumulated a career high 1.1 fWAR in just 23 games: pic.twitter.com/LAZkcsh789
- Clark Fahrenthold (@CFahrenthold11) July 9, 2026
That kind of production has pushed him into the conversation as one of the better offensive catchers in the league, and he’s made real progress defensively, too. For a Padres team that has already leaned on Ty France and Samad Taylor in similar fashion, the answer here feels obvious: keep finding ways to get Campusano at-bats.
That matters even more because the Padres’ first-half offense was rough across the board. Fernando Tatis Jr. didn’t provide much power, and below-average seasons from Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill dragged the lineup down even further.
Freddy Fermin was part of that problem before landing on the injured list in early July with a head contusion. Before the injury, he was hitting just .152/.252/.268 with a 51 wRC+, a line that brings back unpleasant memories of last year’s catching combination of Elias Diaz and Martin Maldonado.
Fermin does bring more value with the glove, and that matters for a team that has been scraping by on the mound. But Campusano’s bat is too strong to sit.
When Fermin returns - and he had already started a rehab assignment before the end of the first half - he should reclaim the starting catcher job. The catch is that Craig Stammen also needs to make sure Campusano stays in the lineup, whether that’s at DH or even first base.
In Other News...
Padres Just Made An Outfield Move Fans Saw Coming
The Padres kept working to shore up their outfield depth this week, making another low-risk addition in Dustin Harris. The 26-year-old has already surfaced with Triple-A El Paso, giving San Diego a fresh name to monitor at a position that has been thinned out by injuries and left the club searching for more coverage behind the big league group.
Harris arrives with a track record that helps explain the interest, having put together a solid minor league resume and a strong season at the plate. For the Padres, the move is less about splash and more about necessity, with the organization trying to protect itself against further attrition while keeping one more capable outfielder in the pipeline if the depth chart gets tested again. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Fans Are All Saying The Same Thing After This Ump Show
A routine-looking Padres-Blue Jays game turned into a familiar kind of frustration for San Diego when umpire Jen Pawol drew plenty of attention for the wrong reasons. A disputed called strike set the tone, and the conversation only grew louder as the game wore on, with fans once again zeroing in on the quality of major league umpiring and Pawols place near the bottom of the leagues accuracy rankings this season.
The Padres also had to deal with the fallout on their own bench, where hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. was ejected after arguing over a challenge-related sequence tied to one of Pawols calls. Later, another controversial ruling went against Toronto and helped San Diego on the scoreboard, but by then the bigger story had already become the same one that seems to follow too many games these days: the strike zone and the umpire behind it. [Read more 🡒]