The Padres’ Friday night was a mixed bag that leaned heavily toward the wrong side of the ledger. San Diego fell 6-3 to the Astros and slipped to 60-57, with Robbie Ray taking the loss in his Padres debut after giving up four earned runs over five innings.
The bullpen wasn’t able to clean it up, either. Yuki Matsui and Wandy Peralta each surrendered an earned run in two innings of work.
Away from the scoreboard, the Padres also made a quick roster move with veteran outfielder Dustin Harris. The club let him go less than a month after he arrived, then brought him right back on a new minor league deal.
The more pressing news centers on Nick Pivetta, whose throwing program has been put on hold after he abruptly exited his rehab outing after just 14 pitches. Manager Craig Stammen said the club is taking a cautious approach with the right-hander, who last pitched in an MLB game in mid-April.
“Any time someone comes off the mound in the middle of an inning when they’re rehabbing an elbow injury, you’ve got to pause for just a little bit,” Stammen said. “It would be, in my opinion, a little reckless to go, ‘Hey, throw your bullpen two days later, make your start on four days’ rest, you’ll be fine.’
“I think if we’re really taking really good care of him, we’re being a little bit more diligent this week. And then maybe he recovers well, and it wasn’t an issue.”
Pivetta also addressed the situation on Friday for the first time since leaving Tuesday’s rehab start early. He said he’s still handling things day by day and isn’t setting any kind of return date.
“I think for me, just day-to-day,” Pivetta said. “I played catch today, which felt good.
I’ll play catch tomorrow, and it’ll feel good, and we’ll just kind of go from there and just go with how I feel each day. I’m not going to put a timetable on anything.
I’m not going to say I’m going to throw a bullpen X, Y or Z. I’m just going to play catch again tomorrow and move forward.”
In Other News...
Padres Ownership Change Just Became Real With Huge Questions Ahead
The Padres are moving toward a new era as the franchise works through a record $3.9 billion sale, a deal that would reset the market for baseball ownership if it clears the final league hurdles. Jos E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones are set to take over, and the expected change has already started to reshape how people around the club think about the future, even though the baseball side of the operation is staying steady for now with A.J. Preller still running the front office.
What makes this moment so significant is not just the price tag, but the uncertainty that always comes with a handoff of this size. The new ownership group has said the right things about its commitment to the team and the community, but the real test comes after the paperwork is finished and the approval process wraps up, with questions lingering about how quickly the transition will happen and what kind of direction the franchise will take next. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Fans Have Another Reason To Trust A.J. Preller
The Padres turned a low-profile bullpen move into something more useful down the line, sending reliever Ron Marinaccio to Pittsburgh for $500,000 in international bonus-pool space. Marinaccio barely got a chance to settle in with the Pirates, and San Diego used the added flexibility to strengthen its position in the international market, where clubs can stock up on young talent well before those players reach the majors.
A.J. Preller has long treated roster churn as part of the job, and this is the sort of transaction that keeps the Padres in business on more than one front. Even after Marinaccio moved on and landed with Cincinnati on waivers, San Diego came away with something it can actually leverage, and for a front office that has built much of its reputation on finding value wherever it can, that matters. [Read more 🡒]