Padres' 27-Year-Old Acquired From Yankees Turning Into Surprise Ace of Rotation

Despite entering the season with a ton of questions around the starting rotation, the San Diego Padres have been able to weather the storm. San Diego has been the best team in baseball over the last few weeks following a slow start to the year.

Even with the uncertainty from some of the starters, this team has found ways to win games, and they have stayed hand-in-hand with the rival Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West. Part of this has been due to the emergence of right-handed pitcher Randy Vásquez.

Vásquez has helped to stabilize this starting rotation, giving the team a quality start almost every time he takes the mound. After another strong outing from Vásquez against the Colorado Rockies in the hitter-friendly Coors Field, Padres manager Craig Stammen had some high praise for the right-hander.

“Fantastic,” Stammen said of Vásquez's performance. “It’s hard to pitch like that in Coors Field. Did a tremendous job throwing strikes, kept his pitch count down, got a lot of swing and miss. Just an outstanding outing from Randy.”

The Padres beat the Rockies by a score of 1-0 in a historic win in the opening game of the series behind a dominant outing from Vásquez. The right-hander went seven innings without allowing a run, only giving up three hits while striking out five batters.

For the year, Vásquez has made five starts, posting an ERA of 1.88 overall. The veteran has been the pitcher that this team has needed, while his performance has been very encouraging for San Diego.

Vásquez came over to the Padres in the massive trade that sent star outfielder Juan Soto to the New York Yankees, and at the time, he seemed like a throw-in. But fast forward a couple of seasons, and Vásquez is now seen as a potential ace of this Padres pitching staff.

"Same old," Vásquez said of his outing against the Rockies. "Just trusting my game plan and executing my pitches, just as I've been able to do so far."

The Padres came into the season without Yu Darvish due to injury, and right-hander Joe Musgrove has been unsuccessful in his recovery attempts. So the emergence of Vásquez has been a much-needed development for this team.

Having both Vásquez and Michael King leading the rotation gives this team some peace of mind amid all the issues. San Diego also signed former All-Star starting pitcher Lucas Giolito to help bolster the depth of the rotation.

But Vásquez has been the leader in everything that this team has done so far, and San Diego is going to need him to continue his dominant ways on the mound. If he can keep this up, not only will the Padres likely stay hot, but Vásquez could be in the Cy Young conversation as well.

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