This deep into the baseball season, arm pain is a fact of life for many pitchers.
For weeks on end, they keep the pain hidden from the outside world.
Sometimes, they can’t hide it.
A reveal for Joe Musgrove came Wednesday night, when a Padres trainer visited him on the mound, leading to Musgrove’s exit with what the team described as elbow tightness.
There’s pain when pitchers get dressed. There are “ouch” moments when try to sleep.
From a Padres reliever who’d taken the ball often down the stretch in 2007, I learned that other daily acts non-athletes take for granted can pain a big leaguer.
“I don’t want to say my arm’s sore,” the pitcher said following the season’s 163rd game in Denver, “but when I go to use the bathroom, it hurts to use the toilet paper.”
A different Padres reliever, Trevor Hoffman, pitched several games down the same ’07 stretch with a bone spur in his elbow. The ailment took the edge off his pitches.
Sensing the Hall of Fame relief ace’s vulnerability, Rockies hitters wacked his fastballs, enabling them to pull out the 163rd game.
“The only thing I had on the ball was my fingers,” Hoffman would say of his fastballs.
I’m not pinning a ribbon on big-league pitchers, nor would they want one. But today’s max-effort brand of baseball and MLB’s ever-increasing postseason is very good for manufacturers of anti-inflammatory medicine.
More and more, team success is determined by which pitchers’ ligaments, tendons and cartilage can withstand stress loads the longest. The World Series tournament is extra stressful on arms. There’s more riding on every pitch.
Padres edge
The Padres have better starting pitching than the Dodgers.
In the 13 games between the teams the gap was vast — 3.51 to 4.66.
Over the 162 games, it was a Padres sweep by significant margins in innings pitched, ERA, fielding independent ERA and win shares.
Quality starts? The Padres had 15 more of them and placed 10th of the 30 teams, compared with L.A.’s finishing 22nd.
Adjusted ERA? The Padres were six points better. Home run percentage? Again, it’s the Padres — by 16 spots in the MLB rankings.
The season isn’t always predictive, of course. Hence October Madness.
But even if Musgrove doesn’t rejoin them, the Padres appear to have better starting pitching going into the best-of-five series that begins Saturday.
Padres co-aces Dylan Cease and Michael King are coming off far better seasons than any Dodgers starting pitcher. Dodgers co-ace and Game 1 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto sat out most of the season with a rotator cuff strain. He’s effectively in late spring-training mode. While that doesn’t mean he can’t outpitch any Padres counterpart, he’s not nearly as tested or as built up.
A former ace, Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler is attempting his second comeback from reconstructive elbow surgery. He did a nifty firewalk against the Padres last week, completing five innings iwth one runsallowed despite having only one strikeout. L.A.’s much-chronicled pitching attrition means that rookie Landon Knack could start a fourth game at noisy Petco Park.
Knack, 26, posted a 3.69 ERA in 65 innings this year. The Padres scored four runs off him in four innings last week. It would be his first career playoff start.
Fun times
Padres-Dodgers-NLDS is fun, example No. 1:
This week, the cashier at a Vista grocery store wore a Padres jersey and noticed a customer deeper in line wearing a Dodgers cap. She asked other customers three times if she should still allow the man to buy groceries.
Example No. 2: A hardcore Dodgers fan in Encinitas complained that the playoffs bring the “casual” fans in her life to the forefront. Watching a game with a casual fan aggravates her no end.
At the rate he’s going, Jackson Merrill may soon rank close to Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Joe Musgrove in jerseys worn by San Diegans.
Small ball
If Dodgers shortstop and No. 9 hitter Miguel Rojas (abductor) plays in this series, it’ll be interesting to see if he attempts to bunt. It was Rojas who hit Robert Suarez’s inside fastball 101 mph to Machado, starting the game-winning triple play that clinched the Padres’ playoff berth. The previous pitch, Rojas showed bunt and got a very good pitch to bunt … but didn’t make an attempt.
• Donovan Solano’s above-average bat-to-ball skills contributed to an error by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts during the season. Roberts wasn’t aware of a mound-visit rule, so his attempt to get a right-handed pitcher to face the righty Solano wasn’t allowed. Instead of batting against Evan Phillips, Solano hit a game-winning, bases-loaded single off Alpine’s Alex Vesia, a lefty.
“It’s an opportunity. I was a little surprised, but I was ready for any situation,” Solano said. “The manager makes the decision and I’m ready for that.”
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