{"id":910351,"date":"2026-09-29T23:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T23:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/910351\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T23:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T23:42:08","slug":"padres-add-joe-musgrove-out-since-2024-to-wild-card-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/910351\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres add Joe Musgrove, out since 2024, to wild-card roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN DIEGO — The Padres’ wild-card roster included a massive surprise: Joe Musgrove<\/a>, the local ace who has not pitched in a game in two years.<\/p>\n

Musgrove is one of 11 pitchers the Padres will carry into their best-of-three series against the Chicago Cubs<\/a>, which begins with Game 1 on Tuesday night, despite being two years removed from his last appearance and recently suffering another setback in his recovery from Tommy John surgery. Musgrove will presumably pitch out of the bullpen, unless he opens a decisive Game 3. But how much he can provide is an open question.<\/p>\n

Padres manager Craig Stammen believes he can pitch “in a myriad of roles.”<\/p>\n

“What we’ve seen from him in the last week or 10 days has been very good, impressive,” Stammen said. “The biggest thing we were just waiting on was his ability to recover after pitching to hitters, and he’s able to do that. He’s been able to play catch every day, including the day after some of his outings. Great news for Joe that he’s finally feeling capable of handling a major league workload. No better time to put him on the roster than now.”<\/p>\n

Ethan Salas<\/a>, the Padres’ young prospect, also made the roster as one of three catchers and will likely be behind the plate for Nick Pivetta<\/a> in Game 2.<\/p>\n

If that happens, Salas will be just 20 years and 121 days old on that day, making him the youngest catcher to appear in a postseason game. The current record is held by Bob Didier, who was 20 years and 230 days old in Game 1 of the 1969 National League Championship Series, according to ESPN Research.<\/p>\n

The Cubs’ roster didn’t include many surprises but did include five starting pitchers, making it likely that at least one of Kevin Gausman<\/a>, Clay Holmes<\/a>, Shota Imanaga<\/a> and David Peterson<\/a> will pitch out of the bullpen in this series. Matthew Boyd<\/a> is starting Game 1 for Chicago, opposite Michael King<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The last time Musgrove pitched in a game, it was Oct. 2, 2024. The 34-year-old right-hander underwent a repair of his ulnar collateral ligament shortly thereafter and spent the ensuing season rehabbing. Musgrove’s goal was to return for the start of 2026, but he continually suffered setbacks, to the point where it seemed all hope was lost.<\/p>\n

Musgrove made four rehab appearances last month, the last of which saw him pitch five innings of one-run ball in Triple-A on Aug. 27. But he continued to struggle recovering from his outings. Days later, while speaking to reporters, Musgrove admitted: “I’m running out of answers.”<\/p>\n

But he continued to play catch and keep his arm active. Last week, he faced five batters in an instructional league game. He then threw in live-batting-practice sessions. The reports were encouraging. The shorter bursts made it easier for his arm to recover the following day, giving the Padres confidence he might help them when it matters most.<\/p>\n

“Over the last few weeks, the medical team continued to try all different modalities and things to find things that would make him in a good spot, both pitching and then from that recovery standpoint,” Padres general manager A.J. Preller said. “He’s been down in Arizona. He faced hitters in an instructional league-type atmosphere, faced some of the big league hitters here a few days ago.<\/p>\n

“Velocity was good, stuff was good, shapes were good. [Pitching coach] Ruben [Niebla] and the group signed off on it, and he’s going to be able to help us in any role.”<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO — The Padres’ wild-card roster included a massive surprise: Joe Musgrove, the local ace who has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[478443,64,63,5158,794,591,478442,44,1189,85],"class_list":["post-910351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-478443","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-musgrove-joe","tag-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}