The Padres placed starter Nick Pivetta on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April 13, with elbow inflammation. Reliever Alek Jacob is up from Triple-A El Paso to take the open spot on the pitching staff.
Pivetta left Sunday’s win over Colorado after three perfect innings due to elbow stiffness. Manager Craig Stammen told reporters (including Annie Heilbrunn of The San Diego Union-Tribune) that the team is awaiting imaging results. That’ll eventually shed some light on his injury and a recovery timeline.
For now, Pivetta joins Joe Musgrove and Griffin Canning on the injured list. Musgrove has yet to throw from a mound. Canning is on a rehab assignment but will probably need close to the full 30 days in his return from last season’s Achilles tear.
Matt Waldron also began the season on the injured list, but he’s likely to return this week. The out-of-options knuckleballer will replace Pivetta in the starting five, Stammen said (relayed by AJ Cassavell of MLB.com). Michael King will go tonight, with Randy Vásquez and Walker Buehler theoretically on schedule for the next two days. Germán Márquez would be on track for Friday’s series opener against the Angels. Pivetta’s spot would come back around on Saturday. The Padres could keep Waldron on the injured list until then if they want an extra reliever in the interim.
Pivetta’s health is the big picture concern. He’s coming off a sixth place finish in NL Cy Young balloting. That earned him the Opening Day nod this season. Pivetta has recorded 24 strikeouts over his first 16 innings, allowing a 4.50 earned run average. In addition to his evident importance to the San Diego staff, he’s one of the better potential free agent pitchers in next winter’s class. Pivetta can opt out of the remaining two years and $32MM on his contract, which would be an easy call if he’s healthy.
No need to rush anyone
You have Jacob up
I’d go
Marinaccio for 2-3 innings
Hart/Peralta for 2-3 innings
Jacob for an inning if need be
If you can get 5 innings 3 or less runs out of the bunch the next two starts for Pivetta I’d consider that a win
Then
Bradgley
Adam/Morgan
Morejon
Miller
I’m holding out hope for a Matt Waldron second half career surge. It’s fun to watch the guy pitch
Not many remember but just 2 years ago he was the guy that held the rotation together.
the rules state i have to root for anyone who still throws a knuckleball.
Big loss for the Padres. Buehler will have to get it rolling if the Padres want to keep the winning streak alive into the weekend.
Great game tonight, King vs Woo, Mariners have a 4-game winning streak on the line. Padres have a 5-game winning streak on the line.
Buehler went 6 innings of shutout ball in his last start. That was against the Rockies so he probably won’t repeat that often but obviously he still has it in him.
It’s pretty weird to see a pitcher come of a game with an injury after throwing 3 percent innings.
Usually it’s quite the opposite.
The times we live in. A 4-5 mph drop in velocity on 1 pitch tells them something just went wrong. Generation ago when guys weren’t throwing max effort every pitch it wasn’t considered a red flag.
How is it that, “Musgrove has yet to throw from a mound”? His injury happened in the 2024 playoffs. This team really needs some semblance of “burning red ears Joe Musgrove”.
Just don’t sign Giolito. You will regret it. His arm is questionable at best.
Maybe Nick misses a month or so and then come back above average but not as good as 2025. Maybe he doesn’t opt out at that point.
It was reported that Musgrove threw a 35 pitch 3 inning simulated game yesterday. If recovery goes well, Musgrove expects his next live appearance in a Cactus League start.
Who reported that?
He is toast. He said he heard something pop and for whatever reason they are calling it elbow soreness and or the flu. It’s Tommy John.
The reporting from the San Diego Union Tribune states nothing about Pivetta hearing a pop.
sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/04/12/injury-forces-…
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Admittedly under the weather to start the game, right-hander Nick Pivetta walked off the mound with a trainer in the top of the fourth inning with elbow stiffness, casting quite the shadow on the turnaround following the team’s 2-5 start to the season.
“I think it’s too early to tell for me,” Pivetta said after the Padres improved to 10-6. “I just tried to go out there, do the best I could, get as deep in the baseball game as I possibly could. Obviously, didn’t feel good. I came out of the game. But the bullpen picked me up. Team did a great job. A lot of home runs, a lot of great plays. Was able to get a really good sweep and build some good momentum as well.”
Pivetta was topping 95 mph in the first inning Sunday, but dropped to 92 mph on two fastballs thrown to Edouard Julien to start the fourth inning. That second sub-par four-seamer on a 2-1 pitch prompted manager Craig Stammen and head athletic trainer Mark Rogow to hop out of the dugout and join Pivetta on the mound.
It was a brief conversation, with Pivetta biting his glove during the visit with Stammen and Rogow before exiting the game.
Afterward, Pivetta dismissed the idea that Sunday’s stiffness was similar to what he felt in April 2024, when he went on the injured list with a mild flexor strain — “No, not correlated to that,” he said — but not the arm fatigue that set him back a touch this spring.
Pivetta was not feeling well enough to even man the ping-pong table as he does ahead of most starts. Neither he nor Stammen cited a particular pitch that led to concern on Sunday, just overall stiffness that did not subside as he got deeper into his start.
“To be honest, I’m perplexed,” Pivetta said. “I think just take it day by day. I’m not going to put a single thing on it. … (The) human body is different. People feel things differently. I’m just trying to process it, work through it myself. I think the next coming days, I’ll probably see how it feels and be able to dictate what type of plan I want moving forward.”
The Padres are amazing in what they can scrape together in terms of pitching. Just when you think the final fray has unraveled, at the last second they find a paper clip to piece it back together. Having that bullpen helps but geez, that starting rotation is like a tottering Jenga tower one piece from collapse.
Sad to hear about Nick. I’ve been following him since he sucked with the Phillies in the Gabe Krapler experiment days. Was happy and surprised that he had been able to develop into a decent pitcher over the years…this sounds pretty forboding for him…
Inb4 Tommy John