Manny Machado Called Baseball ‘Stupid’ Then Crushed a Three-Run Homer. That Tracks.

The San Diego Padres finally won a baseball game Sunday. It had been eight straight losses, and at that point you start looking for signs of life wherever you can find them. Third baseman Manny Machado gave them one — and he did it with a bat in his hands and a weirdly perfect quote afterward.

After the Padres beat the Dodgers 5-2, Machado was asked about the losing streak. His response, via MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, was pure Manny: “It’s baseball, man. It’s a beautiful game. And we’re all stupid to be playing it.”

He’s not wrong. Baseball will grind you down. Eight straight losses will do that to anyone. But Machado also backed up the talk in the seventh inning when he launched a three-run homer that effectively sealed the game. For a guy hitting .189 on the season, that swing probably felt like a deep breath.

A much-needed win — and a strange-looking stat line

JP Sears started for San Diego and gave them five scoreless innings with five strikeouts and only one hit allowed. That’s the kind of outing that can stop a skid before it gets worse. The Padres took a 2-0 lead into the seventh, and then Machado made it a blowout with one swing.

San Diego is now 44-45. They’re 14 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West, which sounds bad. And it is bad. But they’re also only four games out of a Wild Card spot. That’s not nothing for a team that was supposedly built to contend right now.

Machado’s weird season in context

Here’s the thing about Machado’s numbers: .189 average with 18 homers and 51 RBIs is not what you expect from a guy making $350 million. But he leads the team in both home runs and runs batted in. So it’s not like he’s been invisible — he’s just been inconsistent in a way that makes your eyes hurt when you look at the batting average.

Still, the Padres need him. They need that homer to mean something more than just one win. The schedule doesn’t let up, and the margin for error in the Wild Card chase is thin. But for one afternoon, Machado looked like the guy who carried the Padres to the NLCS two years ago.

They’ll try to start a real winning streak Monday. Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. That’s the stupid beautiful thing about baseball.