The National League’s end-of-season award race has some real intrigue at the top, but the Padres may already have their hardware waiting on the bullpen side. Mason Miller is being pegged as the favorite to take home NL Relief Pitcher of the Year, and the case starts with how overwhelming he’s been all season.
Jim Bowden of The Athletic called Miller “the most dominant reliever in baseball,” and the numbers back that up. Bowden pointed to Miller’s NL-leading 0.96 ERA, along with 32 saves in 33 chances and 102 strikeouts in 56 1/3 innings.
Miller has paired that production with a nasty arsenal that gives hitters almost no margin for error. Bowden described his 100+ mph fastball and “wipeout slider” as “nearly unhittable,” and Miller also mixes in a changeup to keep opponents off balance.
For the Padres, the full stat line tells the same story: 3.1 bWAR, a 0.96 ERA, 32 saves, 102 strikeouts, a 421 ERA+ and a 0.87 WHIP across 54 appearances and 56.1 innings pitched.
Jhoan Duran has made a strong push of his own with 28 saves in 30 tries and a 1.71 ERA, and Riley O'Brien leads the league in saves. But in Bowden’s view, neither one has touched Miller’s level.
That’s the gap here. Duran has been excellent.
O'Brien has had his moments. Still, Miller has been so dominant that it would take a major late-season collapse from him and a perfect September from Duran to change the outcome.
Right now, this looks like Miller’s award to lose.
In Other News...
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Darvish is still under contract with San Diego for two more years, and he has already pushed back on offseason retirement talk. His next decision will come down to how the rehab continues to unfold, which leaves the Padres with a familiar kind of uncertainty: hope that an established arm can rejoin the mix, but no real timetable to build around just yet. [Read more 🡒]
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New ownership has said it wants to invest patiently in scouting and player development, and there is at least some optimism around the 2026 draft class. Still, San Diego remains in win-now mode, which makes the balancing act unusually tricky: the major league roster needs help now, but the system behind it still needs time to recover. For Padres fans, the test is whether the club can keep competing at the top while finally rebuilding the pipeline it has spent years draining. [Read more 🡒]
Yu Darvish Is Giving Padres Fans A Reason To Reconsider Everything
Yu Darvish is back on the mound in a limited way, and for Padres fans that alone is enough to stir up old hopes. He has now completed his second bullpen session since undergoing internal brace surgery on his right elbow, a sign that his rehab is moving forward after a long stretch of uncertainty around his future.
Darvish still has not ruled out retirement, so nobody inside or outside the organization should assume a comeback is coming. Even so, the idea of him rejoining a San Diego rotation that could use stability is hard to ignore, especially with so much unsettled on the pitching front. For now, the path back is only beginning to come into focus. [Read more 🡒]