This offseason has been back to normal for Joe Musgrove.<\/p>\n
He took a couple weeks off from throwing, then got back to it. And he never stopped working in the community he loves.<\/p>\n
Sunday, he and Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill were at San Dieguito County Park for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the refurbished ballpark that serves as the home of the Miracle League of San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both have a desire to be more than just players,\u201d Musgrove told the crowd of a few hundred people. \u201c\u2026 We want to be an impact in the community of San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Miracle League provides an opportunity for youth and adults with special needs to play organized baseball, and Musgrove worked with local league chapters in Pittsburgh and Houston before joining his hometown team in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a place that a lot of these kids have grown up; some of these adults now have been playing for 15 years here,\u201d said Musgrove, who along with Merrill and the Padres Foundation donated a total of $300,000 toward the complex\u2019s renovation. \u201cSo for them, it\u2019s the excitement I can relate to of having a new stadium or getting traded to a new team and you\u2019re walking into this brand new ballpark for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Musgrove, there is an increased level of anticipation, too.<\/p>\n
After a year sidelined following his October 2024 Tommy John surgery, he is full-go for spring training, which begins the second week of February.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtremely excited,\u201d the 33-year-old right-hander said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve been out on the field. Obviously, I was around for a lot of the season, but it\u2019s very difficult to get through a year like that when you don\u2019t have the release of getting to go pitch and kind of get that energy out. You spend all year just working and working with no ability to go out and kind of let that work show. So I feel really good right now. I feel like I\u2019m in a good position physically, mentally for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musgrove, who was preparing to be available out of the bullpen had the Padres advanced to last year\u2019s National League Championship Series, kept throwing through November. He resumed in mid-December and now is throwing all his pitches off the mound in bullpen sessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last three, four weeks, I\u2019ve really started to hit a stride, and we\u2019re feeling physically really good now (with) more consistent recovery,\u201d he said. \u201cThe training was a little more based around getting the body ready \u2026 getting the body tuned up and ready to take on a full season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musgrove has not pitched more than 99\u2154 innings since 2022, when he reached 181 innings for a second consecutive season. But even when battling various injuries throughout \u201923 and fighting off the inevitable Tommy John surgery in \u201924, he posted a 3.47 ERA and averaged nearly 5\u2154 innings over his 36 starts in the span.<\/p>\n
In December, Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said: \u201cWe expect him to be a guy that can throw a lot innings for us this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team is counting on Musgrove to be at least close to the pitcher who ranked in the top 16 in MLB in virtually every significant starting pitching category in 2021 and \u201922 and was effective even during the pair of injury-depleted seasons that followed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure there are going to be limitations on the innings and how many pitches they will let me go out of the gates,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I want to try to be as normal as possible, keeping in the back of my mind that I need to be fresh and able to throw in October. So if that means skipping a start here or there or pushing me back a few days or a couple days extra rest, I\u2019m already at peace with having to do that if that means I get to throw in October.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This offseason has been back to normal for Joe Musgrove. He took a couple weeks off from throwing,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":542834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-542833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sandiego","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115958360506888609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542833","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=542833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}