Good morning,

Everything fell the Padres’ way yesterday until Casey Mize threw his first pitch.

You can read my game story (here) about an 11-4 loss to the Diamondbacks, how that means the Padres have still yet to secure a home playoff series and the likelihood Mize will be placed on the injured list.

What Mize revealed after the game didn’t change anything.

“I just think it’s time to have some honest conversations about some of the physical limitations that I’m currently having, especially with I feel like my ankle has been just so frustrating to deal with,” Mize said. “It’s just not allowing me to move my lower half like I want — (to) put anything behind the ball and finish pitches and to execute.”

He was not going to be part of the Padres’ wild-card roster. It was going to take a series of unfortunate events for him to pitch for them at any point in the postseason.

His allowing seven runs in four innings last night merely put that in ink.

Mize served a purpose. He filled innings the Padres desperately needed.

The 7.46 ERA he had in 10 starts for them was due to half his starts being awful.

But they went 6-4 in Mize’s starts, half of which lasted at least five innings and saw him allow no more than three earned runs. That is not what he was supposed to be, but it was better than what the Padres were getting before.

Mize allowed eight runs in his first start for the Padres, two days after being acquired from the Tigers. Then he turned in two quality starts before spraining his right ankle while descending the dugout steps between innings in his start on Aug. 22.

Yes, the Padres probably need to stop jerking Randy Vásquez around one of these years. But to simply have returned Vásquez to the rotation along the way would have required filling his innings in the bullpen. The Padres have found a nice rhythm in the bullpen.

And now, they will move on.

Where it stands

It remains possible the Padres will finish anywhere from the fourth seed to the sixth seed, which means they could play their wild-card series in San Diego, Chicago, Philadelphia or Atlanta.

My game story also outlines what needs to happen for the Padres to host their wild-card series.

Simply put, they need to finish with more wins than the Cubs or Phillies.

So, the Padres have to win one of their final two games. Or they need the Cubs to lose their final game and have the Phillies lose one of their final two games.

If the Padres do not win one of their final two games, the Cubs could finish ahead of them by beating the Red Sox on Sunday. (The Cubs and Red Sox are off today after playing a doubleheader yesterday.)

The Phillies could finish ahead of the Padres by winning both of their remaining games against the Rays and having the Padres lose twice.

If the Padres reach 90 wins or are the only team to finish with 89 wins, they will host the Cubs.
If the Padres and Cubs are the two teams to finish with 89 wins, they will play each other at Wrigley Field.
If the Padres and Phillies are the two teams to finish with 89 wins, they will play each other at Citizens Bank Park.
If the Padres, Cubs and Phillies all finish with 89 wins, the Padres will play at Atlanta.

Joe could still go

Joe Musgrove has entered the conversation as a potential one- or two-inning reliever in the postseason.

It appears far more conceivable now after Musgrove faced hitters twice in the past four days — hitting 97 mph and consistently landing breaking pitches.

The issue in his comeback from his elbow woes has never been about how he has looked in game action. It was that he was unable to recover well enough to throw again in a timely manner.

But the Padres were highly encouraged after Musgrove was able to follow up getting five outs in an instructional league game on Tuesday by looking strong in a live batting practice session on Friday.

The Padres will continue to monitor how he recovers.

The major factor when considering when to activate Musgrove is that creating a roster spot for him means another pitcher has to be released, optioned or placed on the injured list. And an optioned pitcher has to remain down for 15 days.

Roster decisions

The Padres will not carry 13 pitchers for the wild-card round, meaning they will carry at least one extra position player.

The questions being mulled revolve around whether they have all three catchers activated and whether to activate Miguel Andujar and/or Gavin Sheets.

Among the things the team’s decision makers are considering:

The defensive and baserunning ability of infielder Sung-Mun Song and outfielder Jase Bowen against the fact neither would be an offensive option off the bench.
If Salas is starting at catcher, Sheets is the only left-handed option to pinch-hit.
Campusano has caught Michael King’s past 16 starts during which King has a 2.83 ERA. But Fermin is their second-best defensive catcher behind Salas.
Andujar looked good on his rehab assignment and working in Arizona. But it is likely a choice between him and Austin Hays, who is batting .380 against left-handed pitching.

The Padres could create more room on the bench by going with 11 pitchers for the best-of-three series. That is a risk some teams have taken because the series is so short. In their past two wild-card series, the Padres have carried 12 pitchers and 14 position players.

Tidbits

Annie Heilbrunn wrote (here) about the role Craig Stammen’s consistency played in the Padres weathering the precipitous ups and downs of this season.
Walker Buehler talked about being part of the Padres’ playoff season in Jeff Sanders’ pregame notebook (here). Jeff also had some other updates, including one on the Diamondbacks’ pitching plans for the weekend.
Fernando Tatis Jr. extended his on-base streak to 19 games, tied with Manny Machado for second-longest on the team this season behind Tatis’ 23-game streak in June. He is batting .360/.442/.667 during his current streak.
Tatis was 2-for-3 last night, giving him his 47th multi-hit game. That is tied for eighth most in the major leagues.
Xander Bogaerts was 2-for-2 last night and is batting .344/.447/.563 during a 10-game on-base streak.
Sung-Mun Song’s single in the seventh inning was his first hit since Aug. 7, a span of 18 at-bats.
After throwing five pitches to get three outs Thursday in his first appearance since coming off the injured list, Jason Adam allowed one run in last night’s seventh inning and took 27 pitches to get through it.
Tatis ranks fifth on the list of MLB’s top-selling jerseys in 2026. Jackson Merrill is 18th.

All right, that’s it for me.

I have a bunch of stories to work on over the next few days. The next Padres Daily will arrive in your inbox Tuesday morning before the first game of the wild-card series.

We will have plenty of coverage on our Padres page in the meantime. (And yes, viewing stories on the web site requires a subscription. Here is a link to subscribe. At $1 a year, that is something like 10 Padres stories per one cent.)

Talk to you Wednesday.