PHOENIX -- Padres right-hander Nick Pivetta exited his rehab outing at Single-A Lake Elsinore with “tightness” in his right elbow, manager Craig Stammen said, but it’s possible Pivetta may have avoided serious injury.
Following Joe Musgrove -- who worked 2 2/3 innings of his own in a rehab start -- Pivetta walked off the mound in the middle of his first inning. But he threw an extra 20-30 pitches off the bullpen mound in the batting cage afterward and felt OK.
“He felt a little bit of tightness in his elbow,” Stammen said. “But then he was also able to catch his breath and then go throw 30 pitches underneath the stadium in the batting cage.
“Take that for what it’s worth. We’ll find out how Nick feels tomorrow. Same with Joe. We’ll find out how they feel tomorrow, then reassess and go on from there.”
Pivetta has been sidelined since early April with a flexor strain in his right elbow, and the Padres had been targeting a late August return. Tuesday’s outing was the first rehab outing for both Pivetta and Musgrove.
It’s unclear how the plan for Pivetta might be affected by Tuesday’s early exit. After he threw his 14th pitch of the afternoon, Pivetta abruptly walked off the mound and retreated to the dugout. As Stammen noted, Pivetta’s status remains up in the air, but it’s certainly a positive that he was able to continue throwing. According to Stammen, Pivetta threw all of his pitches and did so at full capacity.
“The key is we’ve really just got to see how he wakes up and feels tomorrow and goes from there,” Stammen said. “Walking off the field, you think, ‘Oh, he’s done, that’s it,’ but that’s just not the case.”
If he’s injured -- particularly if it’s a recurrence of his prior elbow injury -- that’s a major blow for a Padres rotation that has been awaiting his return. Pivetta finished sixth in National League Cy Young Award voting last season and posted a 2.87 ERA.
The Padres can take some solace in the fact that they bolstered their rotation in a major way at Monday’s Trade Deadline, adding both Robbie Ray and Casey Mize.
“That was the reasoning behind what [general manager A.J. Preller] did, adding to our team with the two starting pitchers,” Stammen said. “It was: We don’t really know what Joe and Nick will be able to provide. We hope that they’re Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta that we’ve watched for a long time. But it’s just hard to predict what could happen from a rehab process at that early of a stage.”
The San Diego rotation has been thin all season, making those two Deadline reinforcements necessary regardless of the status of Musgrove and Pivetta. Stammen announced that Mize would make his Padres debut on Wednesday at Arizona, with Ray scheduled for his first start on Friday night against the Astros in San Diego.
That’s a major shift for the Padres, who have lately been using bullpen games to cover three-fifths of their starting rotation. They might still use such bullpen games going forward. But they will be significantly rarer -- and could disappear entirely if Musgrove and Pivetta rejoin the team at full strength.
The news for Musgrove was significantly more positive on Tuesday. Making his first rehab start after October 2024 Tommy John surgery, Musgrove worked 2 2/3 innings, throwing 39 pitches. He allowed a run on two hits, striking out three and walking two.
That’s a crucial step forward for Musgrove and felt like a major reason for optimism, until it was overshadowed by Pivetta’s early exit an inning later.