Padres ace struggling early in spring training

A full week of spring training for the Padres and sitting with a 2-4 record shows they haven't found much team success. Granted it's early and a lot of the players haven't seen live action like this since the 2023 season ended, but poor performances are disappointing no matter the situation.

Nobody for San Diego can relate to that more than Joe Musgrove at the moment. Musgrove started in the club's Cactus League opener Feb. 22 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, when the wheels fell off the train before it even made it to the track. He gave up two hits, one walk, hit one batter and allowed four earned runs before being taken out of the game without recording a single out.

Luckily when Musgrove made his next start on Feb. 26 against the Cleveland Guardians, there was nowhere to go but up. This time he at least threw 1 2/3  innings while allowing three hits, one walk and four earned runs. That lowered his ERA from infinite to 43.20, which isn't exactly ideal but improvement is improvement.

Musgrove didn't try to avoid talking about his early struggles when he interviewed with Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union Tribune. 

“I’m a little disappointed in the effectiveness of my stuff,” Musgrove said. “I made better pitches today than I did last week. Some good pitches that they hit. But overall, just wasn’t super sharp for the secondary stuff. So I feel like I backed myself into a corner having to use weapons that I don’t typically use in certain points in the count. But I’m confident that’s going to come around.”

After battling a mixture of injuries during 2023 that limited him to just 97 1/3 innings, Musgrove is looking to have a bounce back season. As of now he's projected by FanGraphs to be the Padres No.1 starter in the rotation. If these early spring woes don't get better soon or if they even follow him into the regular season, San Diego will be in big trouble. 

The team already has a thin starting rotation as it was after losing Blake Snell (free agent), Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha (both to the Kansas City Royals) in the offseason. San Diego's only major acquisition to help the group during was receiving right-handed pitcher Michael King in the trade that sent Juan Soto to the New York Yankees. 

What makes the idea of Musgrove struggling in 2024 all the more concerning is how the rest of the rotation is starting to shape up. As of now, Pedro Avila and Randy Vasquez are projected to be the fourth and fifth starters. Neither have recorded over 100 innings in the Majors (Avila at 63.2 and Vasquez at 37.2). 

The hope is that the trio of Musgrove, Yu Darvish and King can mask the inexperience in the back end, but if one of those three can't produce at a high level, the Padres will be left scrambling.