Michael King will begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A El Paso on Sunday. Newcomer J.P. Sears threw a bullpen on Saturday ahead of folding into the rotation early next week. Nestor Cortes was due in town Saturday night and could be activated as soon as Sunday.<\/p>\n
In other words, the numbers game that squeezed Randy V\u00e1squez out of the rotation last year could do so again soon.<\/p>\n
That does not diminish V\u00e1squez\u2019s contributions to this postseason push.<\/p>\n
Even after a hiccup on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old right-hander coughed up a four-run lead before Padres manager Mike Shildt could turn to his upgraded super \u2018pen, the Padres\u2019 bats fell silent after the third inning and an 8-5 loss to the Cardinals snapped a six-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
The Padres scored in each of the first three innings, but Pedro Pag\u00e9s\u2019 three-run homer \u2014 with action in the bullpen \u2014 tied the game in the fourth inning, the Cardinals added on off Jeremiah Estrada in the fifth to grab a two-run lead and St. Louis\u2019 pitching staff retired 10 in a row before Jackson Merrill\u2019s single with two outs in the eighth inning.<\/p>\n
But reliever JoJo Romero got the next out, the Cardinals roughed up Yuki Matsui for two more runs in the ninth and the Padres\u2019 ninth-inning rally was halted at one run when Fernando Tatis Jr. followed up Freddy Ferm\u00edn\u2019s RBI single by flying out to the warning track to end the game.<\/p>\n
The Padres were looking to win a seventh straight game started by V\u00e1squez.<\/p>\n
He had a 2.79 ERA in four starts in July, but V\u00e1squez was pulled in the fifth inning in each of his last three starts as the Padres \u2014 likely cognizant of opponents\u2019 OPS jumping from .683 the second time through the order to .919 the third time \u2014 turned to baseball\u2019s best bullpen for four-plus frames.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez has not won a start since May 14, but he carried a 3.65 ERA into Saturday\u2019s start, and the Padres were 14-7 in games he\u2019s started because of his ability to minimize damage.<\/p>\n
So much so that Shildt has taken to calling him \u201ca traffic cop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has pitched fantastic,\u201d Shildt said Saturday afternoon. \u201cHe\u2019s done a great job. \u2026 Last year, we had a solid year. This year, we\u2019re in a good place, and a reason for that is Randy V\u00e1squez able to go and take the ball and give a chance to win, and we\u2019ve been able to do that in Randy\u2019s starts. So he\u2019s been very important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the case last year, too, when both he and knuckleballer Matt Waldron held the rotation together until both Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove returned down the stretch.<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s done this year is a clear improvement on his first year in San Diego (4.87 ERA), but the roster is about to be crunched just the same.<\/p>\n
Sears will likely make his first Padres start early in the week in Arizona, Cortes is said to be ready to come off the 60-day injured list and King is trending toward a return from his shoulder\/nerve issue this month. The Padres also kept Dylan Cease at the trade deadline, so all those developments could very well send V\u00e1squez to Triple-A El Paso for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
If Saturday was his last start in the majors for the time being, it will leave a sour taste in his mouth.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez didn\u2019t walk a batter, but Ivan Herrera\u2019s single to start the fifth was his eighth hit allowed in the game, one shy of a season high.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez surrendered hits in each of his four-plus innings of work but didn\u2019t pay for it until Nolan Gorman\u2019s run-scoring single to center in the fourth. Pag\u00e9s followed immediately with a game-tying homer on a 422-foot blast off a hanging 1-2 curve, erasing the Padres offense\u2019s diligent work to start the night.<\/p>\n
The next inning, V\u00e1squez allowed a leadoff single, and Estrada began his night with a four-pitch walk that Masyn Winn cashed in with a two-run double.<\/p>\n
Luis Arraez immediately extended his hitting streak to a career-high 15 games with a first-inning double and scored on Manny Machado\u2019s hard-hit single off the wall.<\/p>\n
Ram\u00f3n Laureano and Ferm\u00edn drove in their first runs as Padres in the second inning \u2014 on an RBI triple and an RBI groundout, respectively \u2014 and Merrill opened up a 4-0 lead with a homer to center in the third inning.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 2, 2025 at 6:11 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael King will begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A El Paso on Sunday. Newcomer J.P. Sears threw a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":114826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-114825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114963178067056129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}