For much of the summer, the Padres were winning in spite of their rotation, not because of it. Michael King was there.
The rest of the staff was a patchwork job, and Craig Stammen watched a bullpen get dragged into games far earlier than anyone wanted. He called it “pitching chaos,” and it ended up being part of the reason San Diego is on the verge of another playoff berth.
Now the rotation looks far more complete. King, Walker Buehler and Nick Pivetta were there from the start of the season, and Robbie Ray plus Casey Mize have since joined the mix.
That gives Stammen more choices than he had for a long stretch. But when October arrives, the Padres probably shouldn’t be too eager to leave the chaos behind.
At the beginning of the year, the rotation was one of the club’s weakest spots, near the bottom of the league in most major categories. King was holding up his end, while the rest of the innings came from a carousel that included Randy Vasquez, JP Sears, Griffin Canning, German Marquez and others.
Stammen, pitching coach Ruben Niebla and bullpen coach Ben Fritz started planning games before the first pitch. Starters were asked to get through only limited innings by design.
A pitcher like Sears was used more like a piggyback arm, not someone expected to keep navigating a lineup for the third time through. It wasn’t built to last forever.
It was built to survive.
And it worked.
That approach kept the Padres afloat until the offense finally caught fire. The bats came around, Fernando Tatis Jr. rediscovered his power and Jackson Merrill got back to being Jackson Merrill. Since late July, San Diego has gone 34-17 through Tuesday’s action, and the club is now closing in on the postseason.
The idea wasn’t pulled out of thin air. The Padres studied what AJ Hinch’s Tigers did in 2024, when Detroit went 31-13 down the stretch behind Tarik Skubal and a bullpen that carried a huge load.
The Tigers then took that formula into October and beat the Astros in the Wild Card Series without a true starter in either of the final two games. Stammen said the Padres took notes, though their version has one major edge: the relievers are better.
Mason Miller is incredible. Adrian Morejon is heading toward a very expensive winter based on what he has done this season.
Bradgley Rodriguez has been one of the surprises of the stretch run and keeps delivering important outs. If this isn’t the best bullpen in baseball, it’s in the conversation.
Yuki Matsui has also broken out in a major way, and Wandy Peralta, Kyle Hart and others have kept getting the job done. Not many teams can survive on five or six innings of bullpen work, but the Padres have been able to do it this season.
That depth is exactly why the club should not hesitate if a playoff start starts going sideways.
King is the obvious Game One choice, though he might also be needed to help secure home field in the Wild Card round, which could mean starting the regular season finale if necessary. If not, he opens the Wild Card series. Pivetta has looked sharp in his three starts since returning earlier this month, so those two give San Diego a solid base.
After that, the picture gets shakier. Buehler has been decent lately, but he has been fighting for a playoff spot for weeks and hasn’t always been efficient.
Mize and Ray cost the Padres prospects at the deadline, but both have been inconsistent since arriving. None of that group has earned the kind of trust you want in a game where the season is on the line.
Even King is not untouchable. On Tuesday night against the Dodgers, he allowed five runs on six hits in four innings. He’s good enough to trust, but what happens if he has another night like that?
The answer is simple: go back to the chaos.
Stammen has already explained the value of pulling a pitcher before the damage snowballs and avoiding the temptation to squeeze out one or two more batters. That logic worked during the summer, and it shouldn’t suddenly disappear in October. If the starter is off, the Padres should be willing to turn the game into a bullpen contest immediately.
There’s a little more room for patience in the LCS and World Series, but not in a best-of-three, and only a little more in a best-of-five. San Diego can and should be ready to pivot fast, because the bullpen has already proven it can handle the workload.
There’s even some irony in all this. In the 2020 Wild Card Series, with the Padres short on healthy starters, Craig Stammen himself opened a winner-take-all Game Three against the Cardinals.
San Diego won and advanced. Nobody understands better than Stammen that a little October chaos can be a weapon.
In Other News...
Tatis Just Turned A Padres Bullpen Question Into Front Office Pressure
With the Padres back in the postseason, Fernando Tatis Jr. has already shifted the conversation from celebration to retention, publicly urging president of baseball operations A.J. Preller to bring back free-agent reliever Adrian Morejon. It is the kind of comment that lands differently when it comes from one of the franchises face-of-the-team players, especially with Morejon having become a key part of San Diegos bullpen mix.
Now the question is less about whether Morejon has earned a strong case and more about whether the Padres are willing to act on it under their new ownership. Keeping a reliable arm in place always comes with financial tradeoffs, and Tatis public push adds a little more heat to a decision Preller already has to weigh carefully as San Diego looks ahead beyond this October run. [Read more 🡒]
Craig Stammen Made The Padres Embrace A Risky Plan At Last
In late July, Craig Stammen had plenty of reason to be skeptical about A.J. Prellers unconventional pitching plan. The Padres were trying to navigate a rotation that no longer fit the traditional mold, so the club began leaning on pitchers in specific matchup roles instead of asking them to work as classic starters. It was a risky shift, but one that matched the roster the Padres had in front of them.
Once Stammen embraced it, the approach helped steady the team through a useful stretch and kept San Diego in the race long enough to justify adding more pitching at the trade deadline. The arrangement also underscored how much of the burden on the rotation belonged to both Stammen and Preller, whose shared fingerprints were all over the problems and the fixes that followed. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Clinched A Spot But This Series Still Carries Real Stakes
The Padres may already have punched their ticket to October, but the margin for error is still thin as they open a series with the Diamondbacks, who remain alive in the playoff race. San Diego enters the matchup sitting atop the wild-card picture, and Arizona needs every game it can get, which gives this weekend an October feel even before the postseason begins.
Casey Mize is set to start the opener for San Diego against Brandon Pfaadt, and both clubs are likely to treat the series like a test run for the kind of decisions that get magnified in the playoffs. For the Padres, it is less about securing a berth now and more about lining up the rotation and navigating a game that still matters plenty in the standings. [Read more 🡒]