It was almost two months ago when Padres manager Andy Green discussed Manny Machado, and why baseball is a game of averages.

“Manny has a proven track record,” Green said as Machado’s season average dipped below .240, while he went homerless for 12 games.

“Averages are called averages for a reason. Great players got to be where they’ve historically been."

At the end of April, Machado was hitting .236 with two doubles, four homers and 12 RBIs in 30 games. Eight weeks later, he's hitting .278 with 14 doubles, 16 homers and 47 RBIs.

Since May 1, Machado has slashed .302/.371/.566, with 12 homers, 12 doubles, 35 RBIs and 32 runs scored. And he’s been even hotter over his past 11 games.

Machado is riding an 11-game hitting streak, going 23-for-49, with six doubles, six homers, 14 RBIs and 16 runs scored. During his streak -- which is his second longest as a Padre -- Machado has a .500 on-base percentage and a .959 slugging percentage for a 1.459 OPS.

In that stretch, Machado has raised his batting average 40 points to .278, and his streak includes seven multi-hit games. Machado has reached base at least twice in all 10 games of the streak.

The Padres' third baseman will ride his hottest streak of the season back into Baltimore on Tuesday for the Padres' first of two games against the Orioles, with who Machado spent his first six-plus Major League seasons.

For all his recent firepower, Machado did make three errors over the weekend, which were instrumental in two of the Padres three losses in Pittsburgh.

Mejia making most of opportunity

Catcher Austin Hedges was 3-for-6 Sunday with a pair of doubles, three RBIs and two runs scored after watching Francisco Mejia start four straight games behind the plate upon his return from Triple-A El Paso. Before going 4-for-10 in his past two starts, Hedges was in a 5-for-40 stretch over his previous 12 games, with one double and three RBIs.

Mejia was 5-for-15 with a double, a homer, two RBIs and two runs scored in his four straight starts before Sunday.

“We’ve seen an aggressive hitter at the dish,” Green said before last Friday’s game. “It’s what we know we have there in him. We’re not going to bridle him right now. We’re going to turn him loose to swing at the pitches he thinks he can hit.

Defensively, we’re seeing some of the things we were asking for, some of the ownership of the pitcher-catcher dynamic and then also some work on the receiving side. He’s growing. When we brought him back, we wanted to give him a little bit of a run. In Frankie’s case, it’s an opportunity to show what you can do in rhythm coming up from the Minor Leagues.

"If you catch two out of three two series in a row, we get an idea of where you’re at and we’ll move forward from there. ... Frankie Has the opportunity to earn more opportunity.”