SAN DIEGO \u2014 Nick Pivetta retired each of the first nine batters he faced Sunday at Petco Park. Before he could finish facing a 10th, the right-hander departed the game, casting a cloud over what had been an auspicious start to the San Diego Padres\u2019 season.<\/p>\n
The Padres later announced their No. 1 starter exited with right elbow stiffness. Leading off the fourth inning, Pivetta had appeared uncomfortable while displaying reduced velocity. After he threw a 92.2 mph fastball for a strike to Colorado Rockies second baseman Eduoard Julien, a team athletic trainer and manager Craig Stammen visited the mound. A brief conference ensued before Pivetta walked off the field and into the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
After the Padres\u2019 7-2 win, Pivetta said he had been sick going into the game. However, he declined to discuss the specifics of his arm injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I didn\u2019t feel good,\u201d Pivetta said. \u201cI came out of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pivetta said his injury was \u201cnot correlated\u201d to the elbow flexor strain that sidelined him for a month in 2024, when he pitched for the Boston Red Sox. Meanwhile, Stammen likened the latest ailment to what Pivetta felt last month, when he skipped a Cactus League start because of what the team, at the time, described as arm fatigue.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery similar; it\u2019s the same thing,\u201d said Stammen, who added that Pivetta\u2019s elbow gradually stiffened as Sunday\u2019s game progressed. \u201cI think we caught it early enough this time. Hopefully, things will be all right, but anytime it\u2019s someone\u2019s elbow, especially a pitcher, it\u2019s reason for caution. And that\u2019s probably why we took him out of the game when we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
When informed of the comparison Stammen had drawn, Pivetta again declined to go into detail.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest with you, I\u2019m perplexed,\u201d Pivetta said. \u201cI think just take it day by day. \u2026 The human body\u2019s different. People feel things differently. I\u2019m just trying to process it and work through it myself. And I think over the next coming days, I\u2019ll probably see how it feels and be able to dictate what type of plan I want to move forward (with).\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the extent of the injury remains to be seen \u2014 Stammen said he was not yet sure whether Pivetta would undergo imaging \u2014 the Padres can ill afford to lose their top pitcher for an extended stretch. Pivetta earned his first Opening Day start last month after a career-best season in which he posted a 2.87 ERA and placed sixth in National League Cy Young voting. This spring, amid questions about the depth of the rotation, he was again projected to be San Diego\u2019s most reliable starter.<\/p>\n
The same rotation has thus far exceeded expectations, pitching to 3.67 ERA during the Padres\u2019 10-6 start. Young right-hander Randy V\u00e1squez has especially impressed, with a 1.02 ERA through three outings. At the same time, team officials believe veteran Joe Musgrove\u2019s return from Tommy John surgery has been delayed until at least June. And the Padres have gotten mixed results from reclamation projects Walker Buehler and Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez.<\/p>\n
Should Pivetta have to miss time, the Padres could turn to knuckleballer Matt Waldron, who has made three scoreless rehab starts after undergoing hemorrhoid surgery in February. Right-hander Griffin Canning, who is returning from an Achilles rupture he suffered in June, could become an option later this month. Lefty JP Sears is another candidate to join the rotation, at least temporarily.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel comfortable with any of those guys taking the ball for us,\u201d Stammen said.<\/p>\n
Still, the Padres would feel far more comfortable with Pivetta continuing to lead their rotation amid a critical season. Pivetta, 33, is in the second year of a four-year, $55 million contract. He can opt out of the deal and re-enter free agency in November, which has been widely expected since his emergence last year. Now, however, he and the team are facing renewed questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2014 Nick Pivetta retired each of the first nine batters he faced Sunday at Petco Park.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,11142,462,477,82],"class_list":["post-600470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fantasy-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600470","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=600470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}