Padres News: Joe Musgrove Believes He Can Still Add Velocity This Season

Eva Geitheim | Apr 4, 2024

Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

San Diego Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove made his best start of the young 2024 season so far on Wednesday, leaving the Padres to a 3-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. Across six innings, Musgrove struck out seven batters while allowing five hits, one walk and one earned run.

This was easily the top performance for Musgrove, who allowed at least four earned runs in each of his first two starts to the year. This time around, Musgrove notched the most innings and strikeouts in any of his three starts.

Even with the strong performance, Musgrove still sees plenty of room to improve, particularly with his velocity. He analyzed his pitching velocity so far this season after the win over the Cardinals.

"I think there’s a little more in the tank with the velocity, consistently,” Musgrove said, via Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “I popped a few 94s today, but typically last year I was sitting around 93. I’m about a mile an hour down now, which I think the more I get throwing, the more I get stretched out physically, the body gets stretched out and lengthened, I think we’ll start seeing more of that. But a lot better today as far as consistency of the action and the consistency of execution and location. So I do feel a lot closer. I don’t feel I’m quite there yet, but learning how to pitch without your best stuff is very important.”

So far this year, Musgrove's fastest two pitches were his four-seamer and sinker. His four-seamer has averaged 92.2 mph while his sinker is slightly higher at an average of 92.4 mph. On Wednesday, per Statcast, he touched 93.6 with a four-seamer that generated six whiffs on 12 swings — an enviable rate for any pitcher.

From 2020-22, Musgrove struck out 442 batters in 402 innings, made the National League All-Star team and threw a no-hitter. During that peak stretch his fastball averaged 93.1 mph, per Statcast.

In terms of speed, Musgrove is on his way to rediscovering his peak form.