PEORIA, Ariz. -- With each passing day, it’s looking more and more like Padres right-hander Joe Musgrove won’t be ready to go when San Diego opens the regular season at Petco Park on March 26.
Manager Craig Stammen said before Thursday night’s 10-1 loss to the Royals at Peoria Sports Complex that Musgrove, who is nearing his return from Tommy John surgery, is in “a bit of a holding pattern” at the moment.
“We’re waiting to try and get over that hump, feel a little better before we start doing anything out on the field,” Stammen said of Musgrove, who last pitched in an exhibition game against Great Britain’s World Baseball Classic squad on March 4.
“But [he’s] still in a good spot. It’s still something we knew was going to kind of happen and that we had to prepare for. And we’ve got his best interests in mind.”
Against the backdrop of San Diego’s focus on ensuring that Musgrove can give the club his best even if that means he won’t make 32 or 33 starts in 2026, the question looms: Who will fill out the back end of the starting rotation?
It looked, for a time, that with one vacancy open, it would be one of five contestants: Walker Buehler, Marco Gonzales, Germán Márquez, Triston McKenzie or JP Sears.
As camp has progressed, it appears the field is narrowing, with Buehler and Márquez emerging as possible finalists to join Musgrove, Nick Pivetta, Michael King and Randy Vásquez. But now that Musgrove might not be ready, both have a chance to make the rotation, and in the final two weeks before the regular season begins, they’ll make their final spring impressions on Stammen and his staff.
In Thursday’s loss to Kansas City, the impression Márquez left wasn’t great. The right-hander was charged with six runs over 1 2/3 innings, giving up four hits while walking four and striking out one. Of the 56 pitches he threw, 28 were strikes.
“I wasn’t executing my pitches,” Márquez said. “I wasn’t getting out in front [in the count] and my fastball was running, pulling.”
The Padres hoped Márquez has a second act in him when they signed the 31-year-old right-hander to a one-year deal after he spent the first 10 seasons of his Major League career with the Rockies. Whether he does might have a lot to do with where he pitched his home games during that time.
Ten years of trying to survive Coors Field as a pitcher is not for the faint of heart. And now that he’s with a club that plays its home games at sea level, the Padres hope it rejuvenates a once-promising career.
“Well, I know one thing,” Stammen said. “He’ll be less stressed out about it.”
Stammen knows a thing or two about Coors. He made 25 appearances there during his 13-year Major League career, most of which came while he was with the Padres from 2017-22.
“You’re just stressed out the entire time,” Stammen said. “Because you know it can go haywire at any moment.”
Once an All-Star who owned a 116 ERA+ over his first six big league seasons despite pitching against the altitude and cavernous outfield in Denver, Márquez has seen his career trend downward in the past four, which included elbow problems that caused him to miss most of 2023 and ’24.
A rough Cactus League outing on March 12? Márquez, steeled by Coors Field, said he isn’t sweating it.
“No, I don’t feel pressure,” he said when asked about the Spring Training hour glass getting bottom-heavy. “I’m gonna go out there and do my thing. I’m gonna give my best. … I feel like tonight was a night that anybody can have. So I’m gonna show up in my next outing and I’m gonna keep working.”
Specifically, Márquez said he needs to work on his cutter and changeup, and that he knows the fastball and curveball will be there for him. He also said that in working with Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla, he’s learned “things he didn’t know” that he could utilize in this new chapter of his career.
As for that second act, Márquez is confident.
“Yes, I feel like it’s going to be a break for me,” he said. “And it’s going to be a second chance.”