Casey Mize slipped down the dugout steps between the second and third inning Saturday night and ultimately exited his fourth start with his new team with a right ankle sprain.
Not even that could trip up the Padres.
Led by an emergency bulk outing from Griffin Canning, a versatile and dynamic bullpen rallied around Mize’s early exit and a resurgent offense allowed the Padres to regain their footing in a 7-5 come-from-behind win over the Minnesota Twins in front of a sellout crowd of 41,484 on Saturday at Petco Park.
“Just a massive team win,” Mize, who is day-to-day, said after limping out of the trainer’s room following treatment. “Super proud of the guys. Bullpen was awesome. What Griffin Canning did was awesome. Offense kept fighting and just shows you what this team’s capable of.
“Didn’t lay down after I put us in a bad spot early.”
San Diego, CA – San Diego Padres starting pitcher Casey Mize, No. 32, exits a game against the Minnesota Twins with trainer Mark Rogow Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026, at Petco Park in San Diego, CA. (Luke Johnson / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Not at all.
Canning went on to throw 3⅓ shutout innings after stranding Kyle Hart’s runners on first and second to end the fourth inning in a 5-1 game.
Jackson Merrill homered in the second inning and drove in two runs on two hits, and the chipping away ramped up over the final three frames after Dean Kremer’s exit following 5⅓ innings of two-run ball. In that regard, the second of Jake Cronenworth’s doubles was the backbone of a four-run seventh that saw the Padres take advantage of catcher’s interference, an ill-advised throw to third and a missed catch at the base.
After Cronenworth’s double drove in two runs to shave the Twin’s lead to 5-4, he took a chance on Manny Machado’s grounder to the left of rookie shortstop Kaelen Culpepper and dashed to third, where Brooks Lee was not in position to receive a surprising throw.
The ball got away from Lee and Cronenworth scampered home for the tying run. The next batter, Ty France, drove in Machado from second base with a single to right. Fernando Tatis Jr. added an insurance RBI single in the eighth and Adrián Morejón and Mason Miller locked down the final two innings in a win that buoyed the Padres’ postseason chances.
The Phillies won their eighth straight game to maintain a two-game cushion as the NL’s second wild card, but the Padres now lead the Diamondbacks by two games as the final wild-card team.
“We all believe in each other,” France said after the team’s 20th win in 27 games, best in the majors since July 24. “I mean, it’s that time of the year where … you need to win baseball games, especially where we’re at in the standings.
“So just continue to build off of that.”
Mize was hit hard from the start, allowing a leadoff homer to Luke Keaschall to open the game and two two-out homers to Brooks Lee and Kaelen Culpepper in the second inning.
After the second, Mize appeared to slip as he walked down the dugout steps. He threw warm-up pitches under the watch of Padres manager Craig Stammen and head athletic trainer Mark Rogow before the start of the third inning and was ultimately allowed to start the frame. But Mize’s fastball dipped from a 94.7 mph four-seamer in the first inning to an 88.4 sinker in the third — the slowest of his career — and he was pulled from the game for Hart (1 IP, 1 ER) after giving up a two-out double to Ryan Jeffers.
“It seemed like my cleat caught one of the steps and then tried to catch myself, and I ended up rolling my ankle … on the bottom step there,” Mize said. “So got it evaluated, taped it up, came back out. My warm-ups weren’t great, you know, so that’s why they came out and checked on me, and I asked to stay in the game and just give us what I could.”
San Diego, CA – San Diego Padres starting pitcher Casey Mize, No. 32, throws a few test pitches before exiting the game against the Minnesota Twins with trainer Mark Rogow Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026, at Petco Park in San Diego, CA. (Luke Johnson / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Mize was making his fourth start since the Padres gave up pitching prospect Kash Mayfield in a trade deadline deal to bolster a rotation that had been stretched thin throughout the year.
Nick Pivetta went down with a flexor strain in his fourth start of the season, Joe Musgrove is still working his way back from his October 2024 Tommy John surgery and the fill-ins — from Canning to Germán Márquez to Matt Waldron to Lucas Giolito to JP Sears — had been more miss than hit as the season wore on.
Padres baseball ops chief A.J. Preller addressed the gaping hole by acquiring both Mize and left-hander Robbie Ray ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline and both had a hand in the rotation turning in five straight quality starts, a run that came to an end with Mize’s exit on Saturday.
Right groin issues sent Mize to the 15-day injured list twice this season with the Tigers.
If Mize needs another stint on the shelf, Musgrove is the most logical fill-in as he threw a bullpen on Saturday, is slated for his fourth rehab start early next week and could slot into the rotation after that.
Musgrove had been trending toward rejoining the team on this homestand, but he tweaked his back while preparing to start again this week at Triple-A El Paso. That setback, along with the rotation’s recent roll, had allowed the Padres to consider holding Musgrove back until rosters expand from 26 to 28 on Sept. 1.
In that scenario, Musgrove would have pushed Randy Vásquez to the bullpen.
Now Vásquez, who has a 2.91 ERA in 34 innings since returning from his ankle contusion, could retain his spot in the rotation if Mize is forced to miss time.
The 29-year-old right-hander, however, is hopeful that he avoided a serious injury.
“It’s a little tender,” Mize said. “ … Yeah, I feel it for sure. We’re treating it and we’ll throw everything we can at it and get it right.”