One of the tropes teams virtually always toss out when injuries hit is that these things happen to everyone and that no one is going to feel sorry for them.
In this case, with the Padres likely losing Joe Musgrove for the rest of the postseason with an elbow issue, that is probably especially true.
Just consider their opponent in the upcoming National League Division Series.
The Padres’ situation does not compare to what the Dodgers have endured in 2024.
The Dodgers have been scrambling throughout the season to fill spots in their rotation. The Padres have felt for about the past month they could practically pull a name out of a hat and get a strong outing in an important game.
They still do, even after Musgrove departed with two outs in the fourth inning of Wednesday’s wild-card game with tightness in his right (throwing) elbow that had been present for possibly going back a couple weeks. Unless the MRI he got Thursday revealed his arm is about to fall off, Musgrove will almost certainly fight to be available in some capacity at some point this postseason.
But the Padres seemed resigned to moving forward without him — and to be confident in their ability to remain strong while doing so.
“Joe is a big leader on this club; he means so much to everybody,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said. “But guys picked him up. That’s what we’ve done all year. We pick people up, we battle through injuries, we battle through adversity. We’ll be ready for the next round.”
No one is going to simply slough off the loss of a pitcher who has been as dominant as Musgrove has been lately. He allowed three runs over his past 22 innings and had a 2.17 ERA in 10 starts since returning from the injured list on Aug. 12.
But the Padres feel they are in a position to progress relatively unfettered. The four starters left to work the NLDS have posted a 2.72 ERA over their 19 combined starts since Sept 1.
“I think overall we’re in a pretty good position going into Dodger Stadium,” pitching coach Ruben Niebla said. “Especially because we have two days off and we’re able to rest some of these guys again. We know what we have. We have a quality pitching staff — good starters, very good bullpen — and we’re going to ride these guys all the way out. And to be able to win this series in two to set us up for that, we’re in a pretty good position.”
Provided they could dispatch the Braves in two games, the Padres always planned to start Dylan Cease and Yu Darvish in the first two games of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium.
Michael King, who threw seven scoreless innings in Game 1 of the wild-card series, would then go in Game 3 with Musgrove planned for Game 4. The Padres have not announced their starters beyond the weekend, but the assumption now is that it will be King followed by veteran left-hander Martín Pérez.
Pérez is clearly the fifth starter and represents a drop-off from Musgrove. But he had a 3.46 ERA in his 10 starts with the Padres.
The Dodgers would presumably love to have a fallback like that.
They began the season with a couple of their best pitchers not available, and things got worse from there.
They go into the NLDS with no bona fide No. 1 starter. On Thursday, they announced they had swapped their originally scheduled Game 1 and Game 2 starters, moving Yoshinobu Yamamoto to Saturday’s opener and pushing Jack Flaherty to the second game. Walker Buehler and Landon Knack are expected to be their other two starters in the series.
Tyler Glasnow, who was acquired to place atop their rotation, made 22 starts but was shut down in August with a sprained elbow. A toe injury is the latest malady to sideline future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, who made just seven starts this season. Buehler missed two months in the summer with a hip injury and has not been near the dominant pitcher he was since returning in May from Tommy John surgery. Three other promising young pitchers who made starts for the Dodgers this season had their seasons cut short by injury.
And Dustin May, who had flexor tendon surgery in July 2023, never made it back in ’24 due to an esophageal tear.
Flaherty is 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA since the Dodgers acquired him from Detroit at the trade deadline. Yamamoto, who missed three months in the middle of the season with a rotator cuff strain, is 7-2 with a 3.00 ERA in 18 starts this season. Buehler held the Padres to a run in five innings in his final start of the regular season and has a 4.93 ERA in eight starts since coming off the IL. The Padres scored four runs in four innings on Sept. 24 against Knack, who had a 3.74 ERA in 14 starts in his rookie season.
Cease (14-11, 3.47) has had periods of struggle and five times this season allowed four or more runs while failing to get out of the fifth inning. But he also threw a no-hitter and was the only pitcher in the major leagues to have six starts in which he went at least six innings and allowed no more than one hit.
Darvish, who missed nearly 3½ months while dealing with elbow inflammation and then a personal issue, has a 3.55 ERA in 25⅓ innings (five starts) since returning.
Starting pitchers do not generally play the large role in the postseason that they do for winning teams over the 162-game regular season.
Over the past two postseasons, starting pitchers averaged just more than 4⅔ innings per game and had a 4.18 ERA. (Rangers starters averaged just under five innings and had a 3.63 ERA in their 17 games en route to winning last year’s World Series while Astros starters averaged almost 5⅔ innings and had a 3.39 ERA in their 13 games on the way to the 2022 title.)
What it takes to win in October, as much as what it would take to get there, is why the Padres beefed up their bullpen at the trade deadline. And from July 30 through the end of the season, their relievers’ collective 3.04 ERA ranked fifth in the majors, two spots ahead of the Dodgers (3.22) in that span.
Still, the Padres pounding the Braves starting pitchers in both games of the wild-card series showed how badly things can go if starters are ineffective.
“It’s important,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said of the depth his team has in the rotation.
“Pitching is going to win this time of year. Clearly, we hope to get Joe back. We’ll evaluate that. But we’ve got pitching depth. We’ve got Cease ready to go and Darvish right there. And Martin’s done nothing but good stuff for us and by the time (next week) rolls around King will be ready again. We’ve got pitching depth in the bullpen; obviously, it was on display (Wednesday).”
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