CLEVELAND, OHIO – JULY 20: Joe Musgrove #44 of the San Diego Padres walks on the field after a team victory over the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field on July 20, 2024 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Brandon Sloter/Image Of Sport/Getty Images)
The Padres are steamrolling into their weekend series at Petco Park against the Colorado Rockies. San Diego has gone 9-2 since the All-Star break, with all but three of those games coming against 1st place teams. They are on a roll at the right time of the season. If there’s a question mark with this club right now, it's in the starting pitching rotation.
While general manager A.J. Preller masterfully remade his bullpen into one of the best in the game with some big swings at the trade deadline, the only starter they added is Martin Perez (the lefty will make his San Diego debut on Saturday night against the Rockies).
Perhaps they know they have an All-Star ready to return, and there could not be a better midseason acquisition than Joe Musgrove. The bone spur in his elbow that’s forced him out for a couple of months is getting much, much better.
“I'm throwing right now pretty free. I'm not overly concerned with, you know, hesitation in the in the delivery of the pitch,” Musgrove said. “But, obviously, it's, you know, it could pop back at any moment, so I'm really being cautious of it.”
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Musgrove is scheduled to make a minor league rehab start on Sunday. He expects to throw 45-50 pitches. If that goes well, he would either make one more minor league outing, or rejoin the big league staff for the stretch run.
“The team has been playing extremely well over the last two months, really. As a player that's sitting on the sidelines, it's frustrating,” Musgrove said. “You want to be involved when team’s at its best and be contributing, so I'm doing everything I can here to get back.”
Musgrove says he wants to be able to go at least five innings at the big league level when he returns and recognizes, with the trade deadline additions to the relief corps, he doesn't have to go deep into games immediately.
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“With our bullpen pieces, it's huge for us. It's extremely important down to the playoff stretch," he said.
Fellow starter Michael King might also need a little more time away from the mound. He took a line drive off his calf in the 1st inning of his last start in Baltimore and was tough enough to complete six innings. But, the next day the adrenaline wore off and the muscle was not happy with him.
“I’m feeling some tightness, a little bit of pain where the swelling is,” King said. “It’s just … soft, you know? It got me a little bit harder than I wanted it to.”
King might miss his next start, which is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. If he does it might end up being a blessing in black-and-blue disguise. He’s already thrown more innings than any year of his career so the Friars might be seeing this as a way to give him a little more rest.
King the competitor doesn’t want to hear that.
“Definitely not how I have been looking at it,” King said. “I have no idea if they have been. I’m more just frustrated because I felt like we were rolling in a good way. Obviously, I want to get back out there, so (the potential delay in his next start) is more just making sure I'm ready to go and can compete.”
Manager Mike Shildt did not reveal what the plan would be if King can't make that Sunday start, but a bullpen day is a possibility.
