Padres may have found their lead-off hitter in 31-year-old outfielder

The San Diego Padres can’t be stopped, completing their three-game sweep of the Seattle Mariners on Thursday and winning eight straight games. Three of the Padres' wins during the winning streak have come on walk-offs. 

The one area that has lacked for the Padres has been finding a solid lead-off hitter — Padres lead-off hitters this season are hitting .218 (22nd in MLB). After manager Craig Stammen struggled to find a lead-off man, he found one in outfielder Ramon Laureano. 

Manager Craig Stammen names Ramon Laureano the San Diego Padres leadoff hitter

According to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, Stammen said that Laureano will be the Padres' leadoff hitter moving forward after having “quality at-bats” at the plate this season. The first-year manager said post-game that he knew Laureano was his leadoff guy when he didn’t go into a slump. 

“I think as soon as he had the one game where he kind of got two hits, like every time we put somebody in the lead off, they’ve gone into a slump, and he just didn't go into a slump,” Stammen said to “Foul Territory’s” Marty Caswell. “I think maybe the first home run that he hit from the lead-off spot not to lead off the game. But, you know, within the course of the game, we just felt, we saw a lot of good at-bats from him, and him being in that spot didn't affect his at-bats. He was taking the same whether he was back first, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, whatever, when I was done putting lower in the lineup. So we felt really good with just his attitude, leading us off and, setting the tone for our team. He does a great job of that, and I feed off of him too. He's got that personality. 

During the series with the Mariners, Laureano was 5-for-13 (.385 batting average), a double, a triple, and two RBI. Overall, through 18 games, Laureano is hitting .290 with a .906 OPS and four home runs. 

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The 31-year-old hasn’t proven to be an effective lead-off hitter in his career — batting .226 with a .735 OPS in 56 games. But Stammen seems to want to ride Laureano’s hot energy moving forward. Can one blame him? 

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