Padres Appear to Have Lost Trust in Veteran Starting Pitchers

The San Diego Padres currently have a half-game advantage for the final wild-card spot in the National League.

The upcoming stretch of 16 games will not only prove to be the most crucial of the regular season, but in a coincidence with the potential to create an ultra-dramatic finale of the 2026 campaign, the final three of those games are against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team that the Friars hold the lead over.

As has been the case all season, starting pitching hasn't been a given for San Diego.

Between Nick Pivetta missing nearly five months due to injury, Joe Musgrove's health setbacks and oftentimes, starters having a poor showing on the mound, the Padres have the third-fewest innings pitched per games started (4.6 innings) by their rotation in baseball.

With the pressure it puts on the offense, the bullpen and even manager Craig Stammen, the skipper said via Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune that there may be some additional measures taken come October.

"The current staff that we have, we’re going to manage it the same way that we would a lot of playoff games," he said. "You know, where we’re going to be probably aggressive with taking the starter out of the game and using our bullpen that we feel is a strength of our team.”

Starting pitchers not staying in postseason games as long as the regular season is fairly common in MLB, mostly due to not wanting the opposing offense to get more of a feel for a pitcher with the stakes being so high.

For the Padres in particular, they have the exact bullpen that can make up for less-than-ideal starting pitching and more usage come October. The relievers in San Diego account for the second-lowest ERA (3.17) with the second-highest usage (582.2 innings) in baseball.

In addition to the bullpen, something that may alleviate some of the pressure put on Stammen by unstable starting pitching performances is that the Padres have the sixth-easiest remaining schedule in baseball according to FanGraphs.

MLB Remaining Strength of Schedule pic.twitter.com/dqBGwbugrR
— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) September 10, 2026

Also according to FanGraphs, the Padres have a 58.3% chance to clinch the final wild-card spot to Arizona's 45.2%, but above all, starting pitchers having some of their best performances of the year in October will ultimately give the Padres the best chance to win.

Nick Pivetta tossed five scoreless innings in his long-awaited return to the mound, Michael King has a 1.42 ERA in his last five starts and Walker Buehler brought his ERA down over two points in the second half of the season.

If trade deadline acquisitions Robbie Ray (4.71 ERA since his acquisition) and Casey Mize (6.34 ERA as a Padre) start to show why they were as highly-touted as they were at the beginning of August, perhaps a deep October run is in the cards for San Diego.

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