Jason Adam emerged from the hall connecting the clubhouse to the training and weight rooms and stepped into a half-circle of reporters waiting for him at his locker.
Adam was about to address his imminent return from the injured list when Jeremiah Estrada cut in front to welcome the 34-year-old reliever back from Triple-A El Paso with a hug.
That was Thursday afternoon. Some 24 hours later, Estrada and Adam officially traded places. The Padres deemed elbow tendinitis to be the culprit behind Estrada’s diminished velocity, yet another blow to a bullpen that hasn’t quite hit the ground running as expected.
For all the talk about Mason Miller’s historic heater, the Padres’ bullpen so far has been susceptible to the kind of volatility that can bite the relief corps. That possibility began with the notion that Adam, one of their All-Star relievers, might not return immediately from the quad injury that ended his 2025 season. Then Yuki Matsui tweaked his groin in spring training, some soft contact snowballed on Adrián Morejón and Estrada began losing zip on his fastball.
All of a sudden, the Padres’ bridge to the ninth inning hasn’t been quite as sturdy as expected.
“It’s a volatile position where performance is evaluated on a shorter span than it might a position player going through slumps or a starter going through a couple bad outings,” Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla said. “A starter going through a couple bad outings is probably about 150 pitches. So if you take that workload for a reliever, it becomes seven, eight, nine games.
“Sometimes the evaluation can’t wait that long.”
Mason Miller #22 of the San Diego Padres celebrates after striking out Willi Castro #3 of the Colorado Rockies during the ninth inning at Petco Park on Thursday, April 9, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
And sometimes it needs a deeper dive to determine what is — and maybe what isn’t — going on.
Miller’s success as the team’s closer is a big reason why the Padres bullpen’s 3.13 ERA ranked eighth in the majors to start the week. He’s struck out 19 of the 24 batters he’s faced in going 4-for-4 in save situations and has a 28⅔-inning scoreless streak dating back to last year.
It’s helped paper over some of Estrada’s and Morejón’s early struggles.
The former allowed four runs in two-thirds of an inning in his first appearance of the year, didn’t allow a run in five appearances and then walked two while allowing two unearned runs before concerns about a dip in velocity sent him to the injured list.
Meanwhile, Morejón has allowed at least one run in four of his six appearances, including an April 7 blowup in Pittsburgh — he gave up five runs, four of them earned, while getting just one out — that will leave his ERA bloated for quite some time.
But a 10.80 ERA doesn’t tell the same story as Morejón’s 2.80 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), which strips the role of defense, luck and such to give a better representation of how a pitcher is actually performing.
It’s a small sample, to be sure, but Morejón’s 2.10 FIP through 6⅔ innings is actually below where it ended up after last year’s all-star campaign (2.28). Seven of Morejón’s 15 hits allowed have been on ground balls, six on balls with exit velocities lower than 83 mph and one as low as 52.4 mph.
Morejón has not given up a barreled hit yet this season and is sitting 99.2 mph with his fastball, which ranks in the 99th percentile of the league.
“He’s been BABIP’d to death,” Niebla said of Morejón’s .500 batting average on balls in play, more than double last year’s BABIP (.245) and nearly double this year’s league rate (.287).
Niebla added: “When you look at Morejón and his stuff and his pitches, this guy’s a better version than what he was even last year and the year before, obviously. It’s one of those things he’s got to ride through. Every pitcher kind of goes through those moments of like, God, things aren’t going his way. But if you’re a good pitcher, those moments of getting the job done are going to be longer and sustainable for the season.”
As far as psyches go, it’s hard to stare at a double-digit ERA.
“That’s very difficult,” said Padres manager Craig Stammen, who had an 8.49 ERA at the end of his first month in San Diego’s bullpen in 2017. “ … Just felt like I couldn’t give up a run the rest of the year. Sometimes when your back’s against the wall, that’s a good thing. You know, (it) makes you focus a little bit more, execute a little bit more and be really intentional with what you’re doing on the mound.”
Wandy Peralta of the San Diego Padres pitches in the 9th inning against the Detroit Tigers during the Padres Opening Day at Petco Park on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in San Diego, CA. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Even with Morejón struggling and Estrada going down, the Padres seemingly have the depth to weather such storms.
They already climbed four spots in ERA rankings while allowing five earned runs in 19⅔ innings in a four-game sweep of the Rockies. Wandy Peralta (2.45 ERA) leads the team with eight appearances, David Morgan has not allowed a run in his seven appearances and Bradgley Rodriguez has allowed just one in his seven appearances.
Ron Marinaccio has a 2.89 ERA, and Kyle Hart’s ability to go multiple innings has been useful even with some hiccups along the way.
The Padses have a bullpen ERA of 3.13, eighth in MLB; their FIP is 2.42, good for fourth in the big leagues.
Pretty good. It’s also not where the Padres expect their bullpen to end up.
“I’d argue it’s a small sample size,” Adam said. “Right now, we’re two weeks into the season. I think baseball in general is hard. It’s a game of constant adjustments. Whether it’s bullpen, starters, everyday players, whoever in this clubhouse, we’ve got a room full of adjusters … and you’re just constantly adjusting, trying to grow from the bad ones and learn from the good ones, too.”
Added Stammen: “I think we just can’t judge these guys on a couple outings. We’ve got to judge them on full seasons. The guys that have struggled thus far in the season maybe with their ERA or whatever, we’re going to look up at the end of the season and be like, Oh, you had a great year. That was just a blip on the radar.”