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The Padres received news on Joe Musgrove’s timetable
The San Diego Padres won their second consecutive series as they finished off a 4-2 road trip. The Padres did so as they won four of the last five games, and got back to .500 after a disappointing start to the season. Despite star players like Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill both underwhelming offensively, as they currently have sub .700 OPS, the team got enough offense from players like Miguel Andujar, Luis Campusano and Nick Castellanos to win back-to-back series.
However, perhaps the biggest highlight of the Padres road trip was the strong effort from their starting rotation. Padres No. 5 starter Germán Márquez bounced back after a rough first start and delivered five shutout innings against the Pirates, picking up his first win as a member of the Padres. Pivetta battled Pirates ace Paul Skenes and, despite the loss, pitched well with eight strikeouts over five innings. Finally, Michael King had a strong start despite battling command issues early. King pitched six shutout innings before the Padres tried to get another inning out of him, where he allowed two runs and failed to record an out.
Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove has been out of the team’s rotation as he is still working on getting back to the mound after his elbow surgery during the 2024 postseason. A new report has shed light on his timeline.
San Diego Padres Announce Joe Musgrove News
The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee reported that Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove will be out until at least May. Regarding Musgrove’s progress and recovery, Acee said, “Musgrove has been playing catch every other day (and at least once on successive days) for nearly two weeks. There is no timetable for when he will get on a mound.”
Regarding where he’s at and how he is feeling, Musgrove said, “Just trying to get some consistent feedback from the throwing. Right now, it’s throwing until we get to a point where I feel confident being able to go out and physically feel good enough to put something on the ball.”
Musgrove added, “The way that it’s been feeling, I just haven’t been confident about being able to get there. And it’s not like I’m not trying to. I’ve tried it and it hasn’t been there. We’ve invested so much time on rest and recovery stuff. I don’t want to waste the time that we’ve taken by pushing it back and then having to start this process all over again. I’m trying to get better as efficiently and quickly as I can. But it’s just not cooperating as well as I want to.”
Musgrove’s Issues
Particularly, Musgrove highlighted that he had felt some issues when throwing his slider. He said, “A lot of it is the confidence in the pitch because the pain is related to that specific pitch.”
During the 2024 season, when Musgrove dealt with the injury that ultimately led to elbow surgery, he threw his slider only four times. During the 2023 season, he threw that pitch 223 times. He opted to adopt a sweeper in the 2024 season, replacing his old slider, likely because he felt it would be less damaging to his elbow.
Despite the changes, Musgrove’s slider and sweeper had nearly identical results as the sweeper had a 33.8% whiff rate, while the slider had a 33.6% whiff rate. It is unclear if Musgrove is trying to go back to his 2023 slider, or whether both are currently causing issues.
Jose Esquer Jose Esquer is a Mexican-American sportswriter and communications student based in San Diego, CA. His work spans football, basketball, baseball, and soccer. He has written for platforms like RotoWire and DolphinsTalk. You can find him on Twitter/X @JEsquer8, usually talking Dolphins, world football, or both. More about Jose Esquer
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