SAN DIEGO -- We’re set up nicely for a wild second half of baseball in San Diego. Let’s get straight to your questions.

How soon after the break do you think A.J. Preller starts making moves, and what moves do you see him making?
-- @FriarFaithful2021

Funny you ask that. I caught up with Brad Hand this week when the Nationals were in town, and we got to the subject of the day he was traded. He was an All-Star in 2018, and planned a short two-day vacation with his family afterward. At breakfast on Wednesday morning, mere hours after the All-Star Game, Hand noticed a missed call from Preller, the Padres general manager. Yup.

Preller did something similar with Drew Pomeranz in 2016. The point being: It's never too early for Preller to pull off a deal. Come Wednesday morning, it's trade season, folks. (Of course, it takes two to tango, and the glut of potential contenders this year might force the activity closer to the Deadline.)

As for Preller's targets, the Padres see three areas of need, broadly speaking:

1. A starter who can eat innings
2. A high-leverage reliever, ideally a lefty
3. A bat (maybe a bench bat, maybe something more)

It's almost impossible to gauge what order Preller would prioritize those upgrades. In the simplest terms, there is no order. The Padres are looking for all three, but they need to find the right deal(s).

There's an obvious need for some extra relief help. But if, say, the Padres can't find a fair deal to upgrade their bullpen, they'd probably be content landing an innings-eating starter. They could adjust their pitching staff accordingly. Point is: They just want to get better.

Is MacKenzie Gore still untouchable, and who would he be traded for if not?
-- Kyle S.

The short answer is yes -- but perhaps for different reasons than before. It's been a rough past calendar year for Gore, MLB Pipeline's No. 6 overall prospect, whose stock has dropped since those preseason rankings.

Gore, it seems, is no longer the can't-miss lefty prospect he was before the baseball world was shut down in March 2020. He owns a 5.85 ERA and has dealt with mechanical issues and blister issues this year. As such, Gore spent nearly a month at the team's complex in Peoria, letting his blister heal and looking to hone his delivery.

The Padres still see the same upside in Gore that they saw when they selected him No. 3 overall in the 2017 Draft. His four-pitch mix is elite, and his fastball plays nicely in the zone.

Ultimately, that's why Gore is highly unlikely to be moved in any trade this summer. The Padres aren't going to trade a 22-year-old with Gore’s ceiling at a discount. But rival teams probably aren't willing to pay a premium, considering Gore's struggles.

If he can't be traded, what's the rationale for keeping Jorge Mateo on the roster after the Trade Deadline? Pinch-running is rarely needed on this team.
-- Brian R., San Diego

Mateo can be traded. But I think there's a pretty obvious rationale for keeping Mateo on the roster, despite the fact that he's hitting just .195, and his playing time seems to dwindle by the day.

Here's my sense: Mateo is one of the fastest players in baseball and one of the few players who can change an inning with his speed. That kind of player is significantly more valuable in the postseason than the regular season.

Mateo doesn't have any options left, so the Padres can't stash him in the Minor Leagues (where he'd probably be otherwise). Instead, he's filling a bench spot -- but the Padres feel they have a versatile enough roster elsewhere to cover for Mateo's deficiencies on their bench.

That's not to say that Mateo will last through September. He needs to perform. And if the Padres trade for another bench bat, it's probably Mateo who gives way. But right now, the Padres are weighing his value on a potential playoff roster, before they lose him for nothing.

Top five moments of the first half of the season for you so far ... go!
-- Rich R.

Love the question. Here's a ranking:

1. Joe Musgrove's no-hitter: Duh. The first in Padres history, and from a hometown kid. What a story.

2. Walk-off vs. Cincinnati: Victor Caratini's walk-off home run was incredible. Eric Hosmer's game-tying homer in the ninth, too. But it wasn't just the wild comeback that sets this game apart. It was the capacity crowd at Petco Park for the first time in nearly two years.

3. The Camarena comeback: Of the 12 grand slams the Padres have hit since the start of 2020, I think there's a case that Daniel Camarena's was the best one. It was certainly the most unpredictable. A journeyman Minor League reliever -- and, like Musgrove, a San Diego kid -- launching a grand slam off Max Scherzer and sparking an eight-run comeback.

4. Sweep L.A.: The Padres spent most of the past decade squarely on the wrong end of their rivalry with the Dodgers. Perhaps that's why their sweep of L.A. in June meant so much. It wasn't just that the Padres won three games. It was that the rivalry finally felt different -- you know, like a rivalry.

T5. Fernando Tatis Jr.: I spent a solid five minutes agonizing over which Tatis moment I should include here. Then I realized: It's my Inbox, I get to do what I want. So I'm taking all the memorable Tatis moments and ranking them tied for fifth. The homers at Dodger Stadium ... the grand slams against the Mariners and Mets ... the absurd leaping catch against the Nationals ... the three-homer game … and all the rest -- they're all tied for fifth place.