{"id":647250,"date":"2026-03-27T20:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T20:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/647250\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T20:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T20:23:22","slug":"padres-joe-musgrove-reveals-he-has-no-timeline-to-return-after-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/647250\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres’ Joe Musgrove Reveals He Has No Timeline to Return After Setback"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Oct. 2 2024, Joe Musgrove walked off the Petco Park mound<\/a> in the fourth inning of a Wild Card game against the Atlanta Braves.<\/p>\n

Nearly 18 months later, after undergoing Tommy John surgery and missing the entire 2025 season, Musgrove is on the injured list<\/a> without a timetable to return to the mound.<\/a><\/p>\n

Musgrove entered spring training expecting to factor into the team’s plans come the start of the 2026 season. However, he didn’t bounce back from his March 4 exhibition against Great Britain exactly as he wanted.<\/p>\n

He had a bullpen session on March 8 and has been shut down from throwing<\/a> ever since. He finally started playing catch on Thursday, hours before his team was blown out, 8-2,<\/a> on the same field he walked off 18 months ago.<\/p>\n

Before the game, Musgrove provided an update on how he’s feeling and what went into the decision to shut him down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t feel quite as good throughout the buildup of the offseason,\u201d Musgrove said. \u201cNothing that prohibited me from throwing. Just not feeling as free and consistent during the throwing, and then the recovery stuff was a little more difficult. And again, I kind of chalked that up to just the process of building back up, and was hoping to hit that stride and break through and start feeling better and just never really came.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s important to address it now, instead of forcing my way in at the start of the season and missing a bigger chunk of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musgrove recently underwent an MRI to make sure there was nothing of concern. The results came back clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, you look at an MRI after Tommy John and it never looks great,\u201d Musgrove said. \u201cThere\u2019s always the idea of looking at something and finding something that you don\u2019t feel. \u2026 So I personally haven\u2019t even looked at the image. I just told them, like, \u2018Tell me what\u2019s wrong. If there\u2019s something serious, we\u2019ll address it. If not, I don\u2019t even want to see it.\u2019 So I feel physically good right now, and I\u2019m heading in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musgrove admitted that this was a “setback,” but he’s hoping that the decision to shut him down now will help him have a smooth return later in the year.<\/p>\n

“It’s a setback, I guess, because I looked at coming into camp and breaking with the team and being ready for Opening Day,” Musgrove said. “Physically, how I felt, [the setback] became more of a realistic thing as spring went on. And again I was just holding on to hope that one day I would break through and feel better, and it just never came.”<\/p>\n

As for when he will return, Musgrove said, “I don’t have a timeline yet.”<\/p>\n

President of baseball operations A.J. Preller didn’t have a timeline, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like he\u2019s been down for six to eight weeks, so hopefully he can get going here,\u201d Preller said. \u201cBut we\u2019re not going to really know until he gets through days like today, where he starts to play catch and he puts some volume on what he\u2019s doing and he starts to build up innings and we\u2019re seeing the bounce-back.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not like next week he\u2019s coming back. But this isn\u2019t something either where we\u2019re talking about months. We\u2019ll know a lot more here over the course of the next week to 10 days, how he starts bouncing back from these early throwing sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know he\u2019s gonna put the work in, for sure. So we\u2019re hoping it\u2019s sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the Padres will see what they have in February additions Walker Buehler and Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez. They will also hope that Michael King bounces back from a rough 2025 season, while Nick Pivetta bounces back from an ugly first start on Opening Day.<\/p>\n

If not, the Padres rotation could be in trouble<\/a> as they await the return of Musgrove \u2014 who isn’t exactly a sure thing himself coming off major surgery and an 18-month hiatus.<\/p>\n

Sign up to our free newsletter<\/a> and follow us on Facebook<\/a> and X\/Twitter<\/a> for the latest news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Oct. 2 2024, Joe Musgrove walked off the Petco Park mound in the fourth inning of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-647250","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-mlb","10":"tag-padres","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-padres","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-sandiegopadres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647250","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=647250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}