Padres' Craig Stammen Doubles Down on Questionable Decisions in Loss to Cardinals

Craig Stammen has pulled all the right strings time and time again in his first year in charge of the San Diego Padres.

It seems like just about every time he brings in a pinch-hitter or changes the lineup or suddenly uses an opener, the move pans out.

On Thursday, however, that wasn't the case.

In the Padres' series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals, Stammen made two decisions that came back to haunt San Diego.

First, Stammen decided to remove starting pitcher Michael King from the game after six innings and 86 pitches.

King was dominating, allowing just one hit (a solo home run) and two walks. However, entering the game, the Padres wanted to limit his workload, and Stammen stuck with that decision.

“He definitely wanted to go another inning,” Stammen said to reporters after the game. “We had kind of decided pregame that his workload over the past three or four starts warranted maybe slightly less workload tonight.”

Thus, Stammen went with right-hander Bradgley Rodriguez, who has been dominant himself this season. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case on Thursday.

Rodriguez gave up a leadoff double to Jordan Walker. Then, after getting a strikeout, he allowed a go-ahead triple to Masyn Winn, which proved to be the final run of the game.

That triple, however, moved the spotlight onto another Stammen decision.

Stammen elected to play Nick Castellanos in right field on Thursday, moving Platinum Glove winner Fernando Tatis Jr. to second base. Tatis is a great defender wherever he plays, but when he's not in right field, the Padres miss his impact.

Thursday was a prime example of that.

While Winn's triple was by no means an easy catch — it had a 45% catch probability, per MLB.com — it's the kind of play that Tatis makes routinely. It's also the kind of play that could have helped the Padres win Thursday's game.

Masyn Winn with the go-ahead triple in the 7th inning 😮‍💨

Catch the ending of Cardinals-Padres on ESPN and the ESPN App 🍿 pic.twitter.com/zQvXXrdVL3
— ESPN (@espn) May 8, 2026

“It’s a tough play for Nick,” Stammen said of Castellanos' diving attempt. “He went for it. Can’t fault him on that. He makes that catch … he basically [changes] the game and [keeps] it where it was. If he just lets it fall, does the guy from second score? I don’t know. Probably not. Maybe. Who knows?

"But he went for it. That’s what we want our players to do. We want them to go for it. Want them to play with freedom. And him going for it, he felt like he could get it. Sometimes you get it. Sometimes you don’t.”

If Tatis was in right field, that could have very well been a game-saving catch. Rodriguez retired the next batter, Nathan Church, on a strikeout. The Cardinals didn't score another run over the final two innings.

Stammen, however, doesn't have any regrets.

“We want his bat in the lineup, and we felt like we needed to score some runs,” Stammen said of the decision to not take out Castellanos at that point for a defensive substitution. “In a tie game, we want him swinging the bat. He’s been swinging the bat hot here, and that’s what we’re thinking. If I’m like guessing the ball is going to get hit to right field, I’m going to be guessing wrong a lot.”

As for the decision to have Castellanos in the lineup in the first place?

“We’re trying to score runs,” Stammen said. “You want to play offense early and get ahead, and then you can put your defense in late is kind of the way I look at it. You just can’t have both at all times. And right now, we’re just not scoring a ton of runs. So you feel like [you want to] get as many good bats in there as we can with a good matchup and see if we can outscore the other team a little earlier.

"But we weren’t able to do that tonight.”

Stammen has no reason to doubt himself right now. He has the Padres exceeding expectations at 22-15, just one game back of the reigning back-to-back champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West.

If the Padres want to stay with the Dodgers over the course of a long season, though, Stammen will have to learn from these moments.

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