PEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez rebounded on Tuesday. The timing of that is important, because the 31-year-old veteran likely has just one more Cactus League start to buoy his case for a spot in the Padres\u2019 starting rotation.<\/p>\n
M\u00e1rquez struck out a spring-best nine batters while allowing three runs in five innings in the Padres\u2019 9-6 win over the Seattle Mariners. Two of the three hits he allowed left the yard on a hot day at Peoria Stadium. The one walk he issued \u2014 with one out in the fifth inning \u2014 crossed the plate after a double and a sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n
M\u00e1rquez\u2019s ninth strikeout stranded the other runner at second base as he exited with a far better line than his last appearance, when he walked four and allowed six runs in 1\u2154 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was commanding all my pitches,\u201d M\u00e1rquez said. \u201cI was pounding the zone. My curveball was good today and slider and I threw a couple of good changeups.\u201d<\/p>\n
M\u00e1rquez also hit a batter while throwing 51 of his 78 pitches for strikes. The outing lowered his spring ERA to 9.26 through 11\u2154 innings.<\/p>\n
The rebound arrived after M\u00e1rquez huddled with pitching coach Ruben Niebla. A small fix led to M\u00e1rquez staying back in his delivery.<\/p>\n
With Nick Pivetta, Michael King and Randy V\u00e1squez locked for the top three spots in the rotation, M\u00e1rquez is pushing for one of perhaps two spots.<\/p>\n
Walker Buehler took a big step forward with five shutout innings on Monday. M\u00e1rquez\u2019s nine strikeouts on Tuesday are the most by a Padres pitcher so far this spring. He, Buehler and JP Sears, Marco Gonzales and Triston McKenzie are in the thick of the competition with one more turn through the order before the Padres play their final Cactus League game on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing I can control is going out there and doing my job,\u201d M\u00e1rquez said. \u201cThey are going to make the decision and I\u2019m just going to do my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added manager Craig Stammen: \u201cGood bounce back outing for Germ\u00e1n. Had the breaking balls going, good changeups, good velocity in the fastball. So overall, great outing for him. I know he had a few punchouts, eight or nine, something like that. Got through five innings. Pretty darn good outing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Building the base<\/p>\n
Left-hander Adri\u00e1n Morej\u00f3n struck out four over two efficient innings on Thursday, pitched one inning on Sunday and returned to the mound on Tuesday, pitching the eighth inning. Expect the frequency to pick up for the main relievers in camp as the Padres finish out their Cactus League schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I love doing more than one inning right now, because you kind of get to go through all your stuff,\u201d Stammen, a former reliever, said over the weekend. \u201cYou get to pitch a little bit more and work on things and get comfortable. And then it\u2019s like, all right, let\u2019s start stacking those pitching days a little closer together and then be ready to go on opening day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right-hander Jeremiah Estrada pitched 1\u2154 innings on Friday and one inning on Monday.\u00a0Right-hander David Morgan hasn\u2019t had a one-inning-plus outing yet, but he had one day off before pitching the ninth inning on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The relievers at the World Baseball Classic \u2014 right-handers Mason Miller, Alek Jacob and Ron Marinaccio and left-hander Wandy Peralta \u2014 will rejoin camp after Wednesday\u2019s off day.<\/p>\n
Back in the fire<\/p>\n
Slowed by an oblique strain after making three Cactus League appearances in February, Ty Adcock jumped right in the fire in his return to Cactus League action on Monday. The 29-year-old right-hander allowed a leadoff triple in the ninth inning before retiring the next three hitters, stranding the runner at third.<\/p>\n
Adcock was optioned to Triple-A El Paso after Tuesday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you just have clean innings all the time, you never get challenged a little bit in those difficult situations,\u201d Adcock said Tuesday morning. \u201cIt\u2019s good to get into a couple stressful situations before the season hits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
Reliever Jason Adam (quad) struck out a batter in a scoreless inning in a minor league game on a backfield after lefty JP Sears made the start, allowing three runs over five innings while striking out seven. It was Adam\u2019s first game action of the spring.\u00a0 \u201cA step up from what he\u2019s been doing, (but) not an ultimate step up to a Cactus League game,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cThat\u2019ll be, hopefully, the next thing that he gets to do. But this is a necessary step. And then see him here towards the end, hopefully.\u201d
\nOF Samad Taylor\u00a0and LHP\u00a0Jackson Wolf were reassigned to minor league camp, leaving 51 players in big-league camp. The transaction for Taylor came two days after cramping in his right calf forced him from a game. He had the day off Monday and was back to running again on Tuesday. \u201cAt first I thought my hamstring was gone,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThen the knot wasn\u2019t going away, wasn\u2019t going away. Then I did a hydration test and (saw) that I was dehydrated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez rebounded on Tuesday. The timing of that is important, because the 31-year-old veteran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,853,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-629273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116247885589471872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}