San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado bleached his hair seven days ago, and the Padres are yet to lose with his new style. Machado — much like many other baseball players and fans — is extremely superstitious, and said he changed his hair to spark something in the team. When I grew my hair out earlier in the year we went on a hot streak," Machado said.
The Padres, since Machado changed his hair, have won six games in a row, sweeping both the Washington Nationals and San Francisco Giants. Their push brought them within 1.5 games of both the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs, who own the top two spots in the Wild Card, and their seven-game win streak is the longest in MLB at the moment. Machado himself has been solid over that span, hitting a homer and driving in five runs while scoring six of his own over the course of those six games.
He has a wRC+ of 106 during those games. Machado is without a doubt one of the Padres' most important players, but valuing his season is difficult. He has 27 homers and 82 RBIs on the year, both of which are fairly normal for the perennial All-Star, but his OPS stopped to .724, which would be the lowest of his career over the course of a full season.
Some of his underlying numbers are way down from a strong 2025 campaign, such as his xwOBA and average exit velocity, but Machado tries not to concern himself with the underlying stats of the modern game. "I just wish we can get the analytics out of the way," Machado said earlier in the season. "I think there's too many stats out there, too many.
Too many stats, way too many numbers. I don't even know half of the stuff that that that goes up there. I see, I look at the board sometimes and I'm like, man, I even asked some of the guys like, what is WCCVBB, whatever it is, like, what are these names that are being created, you know, I mean, it's just, it's just crazy to even keep up with.
Weighted expected on base percentage. Like why are we creating these stats for, you know, I think that's the problem with baseball right now." The third baseman, regardless of his stance on statistics, is a key part to a postseason-hopeful Padres squad, and will play a key role in the remainder of the season as his team looks for their first ever World Series title.
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