Padres manager Craig Stammen opens up on confronting fan heckling Manny Machado

SAN DIEGO — One day in early March, before he debuted as manager of the San Diego Padres without prior coaching experience, Craig Stammen considered the idea of another first. The former reliever was not all that far removed from a 13-year playing career in which he was never ejected from a game. Soon enough, however, his streak figured to end. Even the most mild-mannered rookie managers know they must, at some point, make a show of defending their players.

“I’ve got to put my hand over my mouth as much as I can. Don’t need to get on Jomboy,” Stammen said, referring to the multimedia company that rose to prominence through its breakdown and lip-reading videos. “I think those are my biggest worries, is making it a viral spectacle. So, we’ll see how it goes. You never know. I could lose my cool, just like any of us, and it could go completely wrong.”

Wednesday, just three months later, Stammen found himself on Jomboy. Or, to be more precise, in a brief video posted on the company’s widely followed X account.

The clip had been lifted from a broadcast of the previous night’s game at Petco Park, where, in the moments after an 11-inning loss to the Cincinnati Reds, Stammen engaged in what he described as a quick exchange with a nearby fan.

Before the camera cut away, Stammen could be seen directing a verbal message to the seats above the home dugout as some Padres coaches and players looked on. Not visible in the frame was third baseman Manny Machado, who Stammen said had received the brunt of a spectator’s vitriol.

Broadcast got a quick shot of the Padres dugout chirping back at this fan pic.twitter.com/and27u65uY

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) June 10, 2026

“I would say the fans were saying things to us that were probably not appropriate,” Stammen told The Athletic after Wednesday’s 5-4 walk-off victory against the Reds. “Manny was walking down the dugout (toward the home clubhouse). Manny held his tongue, and for us as coaches, we’re going to take that bullet for Manny. We got Manny out of there and let the fan know what I thought about what he was saying to Manny.

“I didn’t say one cuss word. You can look it up on Jomboy. I feel pretty proud of how I handled it. I said it in a stern voice, similar to how I talk to my kids. … It was very short. I said three sentences, and the fan said, ‘I gotcha,’ and we both agreed that that was time for that to end.”

The Padres, in a game that spanned nearly four hours, had just lost for the 14th time in 19 games. The primary culprit was a league-worst offense. Machado, the $350 million infielder, collected two hits but struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, whiffing at a 92.1 mph fastball.

A day later, Machado went 1-for-4 with an RBI double. He leads the Padres with 11 home runs. He also has a .172 batting average, the lowest of any qualifying player in the majors. Such underperformance made the 33-year-old an easy target Tuesday evening.

“I didn’t hear him say anything, and he handled it very well and walked down the dugout,” said Stammen, who spent four seasons as Machado’s teammate before becoming his manager. “You know, he’s having a tough time. It’s not an easy part of his career, and he could have said a myriad of things that were probably very true to that fan, and he chose not to say something.

“Being in that situation with our star player, Manny, who I think very highly of and I’ll protect in any way that I possibly can, I wanted to protect him from being on Jomboy and making something worse than what it needed to be.”

Padres starting pitcher Michael King, speaking after Wednesday’s game, shared the perspective of someone who called Yankee Stadium home for parts of five seasons. King said he did not witness Stammen’s interaction, but the right-hander has experienced his share of criticism.

“When somebody s—s on me, I can take it,” King said after allowing three runs in 6 2/3 innings in the series finale against the Reds. “I know how it is. I also would probably say the same thing about myself, because I did not pitch well. But when somebody’s saying something about somebody you love, you get a little sensitive about it. And so, my wife loves defending me. It’s kind of the same thing of like, ‘If you’re going to come at one of my teammates, I’m going to have his back.’”

Tuesday might have elicited one of Stammen’s most demonstrative shows of support. Despite Machado’s season-long struggles with runners in scoring position, the manager said after the game — and after he confronted a fan — that “there’s nobody I’d rather have at the plate.” It had been 10 days since he earned his first big-league ejection after an unsuccessful replay challenge.

King was asked if he had seen any Aaron Boone, the oft-ejected Yankees manager, in Stammen.

“Boone was very fiery. I haven’t seen that fiery side of him, but I would love to see, like, a full rage session from Stammen,” King said, smiling. “But I think that the best managers that I’ve had are ones who are not sensitive, and I would 100 percent classify him as that.

“He’s just a very confident man, and that’s what you have to do. I thought that the guys that I felt handled New York media really well were the ones that admitted when they stunk. And it’s not the product of baseball that we (the Padres) feel like we should be putting out there, and I know he feels that and understands that.”

The Padres trailed 4-2 entering Wednesday’s bottom of the eighth, seemingly on their way to another low-scoring defeat. Then Jackson Merrill doubled, Machado advanced him to third with a deep lineout, Gavin Sheets doubled, and Samad Taylor singled to tie the score. It was the kind of late-game rally the team conjured at an unsustainable rate in April.

Still, it beat the alternative. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, another of Stammen’s former teammates delivered his second home run of the season, and everyone spilled out of the home dugout to mob Fernando Tatis Jr. at home plate. The Padres had suddenly won a series after losing each of their previous four.

This time, Stammen and his coaches heard only cheers.

“It’s that same positive guy,” Tatis said of the former reliever. “He’s going to bring us together as a group, he’s going to have our back, he’s going to stay positive, which is a huge matter in a long season. And we have a long way to go, so he’s doing just fine so far.”

For his part, Stammen acknowledged the uneven road his team has already traveled. On May 18, the Padres edged the Los Angeles Dodgers to move into first place in the National League West. Since then, they are 6-14 while playing for a rookie manager who had to be persuaded to interview for the job.

“I think once I said yes, then I was all-in,” Stammen said. “I felt really good about this opportunity, and it was a challenge that I was willing to accept. And it has been a challenge. It’s been a fun challenge. We’ve rode the highs of playing really good early and kind of struggled here of late, and it’s testing what I truly believe in as a person, about sticking with it and worrying about the next day and the next pitch and the next opportunity to have success and be able to pass that on to the players and see if we can handle a season like that.”