{"id":53598,"date":"2025-08-08T03:42:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T03:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53598\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T03:42:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T03:42:15","slug":"padres-to-activate-michael-king-on-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53598\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres To Activate Michael King On Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael King<\/a> will make his return from the injured list on Saturday, the Padres informed reporters (including Dennis Lin of The Athletic<\/a>). San Diego will activate him from the 60-day IL to go opposite Lucas Giolito<\/a> in the second game of their weekend series against Boston. The Friars already have an opening on the 40-man roster, so unless they make another move tomorrow, they\u2019ll only need to make an active roster move involving a pitcher.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s return was expected when the Padres optioned<\/a>\u00a0JP Sears<\/a> on Tuesday. That allowed San Diego to play with a nine-man bullpen for a few days. They\u2019ll drop back to eight when King rejoins Dylan Cease<\/a>,\u00a0Nick Pivetta<\/a>,\u00a0Yu Darvish<\/a> and\u00a0Nestor Cortes<\/a> in the rotation. The righty reached 61 pitches across 3 1\/3 innings in his only Triple-A rehab start. It\u2019s likely manager Mike Shildt will keep him around 75 pitches in his first MLB appearance in almost three months.<\/p>\n

The injury began innocuously enough. King was scratched from a scheduled start on May 24 after telling the coaching staff that he felt he slept uncomfortably on his shoulder. He went on the 15-day IL a day later with what the team called inflammation. They later announced that he was battling an issue with his thoracic nerve that was sapping the strength in his shoulder. It ended up costing him two and a half months, though the team stressed that there weren\u2019t any structural concerns.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s fastball averaged 92.7 MPH during his Triple-A start. That\u2019s a tick below his MLB season average. That\u2019s probably to be expected after an extended layoff. If King gets back to his pre-injury form, he\u2019ll arguably be San Diego\u2019s best starter. The 30-year-old had turned in a 2.59 earned run average through his first 10 starts. He struck out 28.4% of opposing hitters against a 7.6% walk rate. It was an even better performance than last year\u2019s excellent first season in San Diego: 173 2\/3 innings of 2.93 ERA ball with a 27.7% strikeout percentage.<\/p>\n

The Padres welcome King back at a time when they occupy the second Wild Card spot in the National League. They\u2019re one game above the Mets and 4.5 clear of the Reds, the top team that is not in playoff position. San Diego trails the Dodgers by just two games in the NL West.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s performance down the stretch will also have a significant impact on the upcoming free agent market. He\u2019ll decline his end of a $15MM mutual option, reject a qualifying offer, and hit free agency for the first time. There\u2019s an argument that he\u2019s the second-best starter in the class behind Framber Valdez<\/a>. That\u2019s dependent on him showing no ill effects from the injury down the stretch and into the postseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael King will make his return from the injured list on Saturday, the Padres informed reporters (including Dennis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,16304,462,82],"class_list":["post-53598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-michael-king","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}