3:30pm: The Padres have made it official, announcing they have selected Davis to the roster. Left-hander Tom Cosgrove was placed on the 15-day injured list with left elbow inflammation to open an active roster spot. To get Davis onto the 40-man, right-hander Joe Musgrove was transferred to the 60-day IL. Musgrove has a bone spur in his right elbow and has been on the IL since May 29. He’s now ineligible to return until 60 days from that date, which would be late July. He still hasn’t begun a rehab assignment and will need a few weeks to build up once he does.
11:29am: The Padres are planning to call up left-hander Austin Davis prior to tonight’s series opener against the Red Sox, reports Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. They’ll need to formally select his contract from Triple-A El Paso and open a spot on the 40-man roster, though that can be accomplished in rather straightforward fashion by transferring Xander Bogaerts (who’s out with a fracture in his shoulder) from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL.
The 31-year-old Davis hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2022 but has appeared in parts of five MLB seasons. He’s posted a lackluster 5.61 earned run average in that time while showing an ability to miss bats (25% strikeout rate) but also some troubles with walks (11%) and home runs (1.25 HR/9).
Though he doesn’t have much of a big league track record, Davis has been sharp in El Paso this season. The journeyman southpaw has a 3.10 ERA in 29 frames and has been outstanding since a shaky start to the year. Over his past 23 1/3 innings, Davis boasts a 1.93 ERA with 32 punchouts and 13 walks. That’s still too many free passes, of course. It’s perhaps worth noting that four of those walks were intentional, but that’s offset by the fact that he’s also plunked four hitters along the way.
Davis’ effectively wild tenure with the Padres’ Triple-A club marks a stark turnaround from a disastrous Triple-A run with the Astros a year ago, when he walked 34 batters and allowed 32 runs in just 25 1/3 innings. Even with that career-worst performance skewing his track record, Davis sports a 4.19 ERA, 29% strikeout rate and 13.6% walk rate in parts of five Triple-A campaigns.
If Davis can carry this season’s success over to the majors and carve out a longer-term spot on the roster, he’d be controllable for three seasons beyond the current campaign, though he has quite a ways to go before that’s a real consideration. The left-hander is out of minor league options, so he’ll have to stick on the roster or else be designated for assignment before he can be sent back down to the minors. Even if he were to clear waivers in such a scenario, he’d have the right to reject a minor league assignment in favor of free agency by virtue of the fact that he’s been outrighted previously in his career.
They also just signed/traded for Nabil Crismatt, apparently.
Bullpen is taxed, they need some fresh arms.
Midway, it has been taxed for sure in this horrid stretch of games in June. However with the off day yesterday, following the 7 ips from Cease, BP should be rested as of today. Anyone not fully rested doesn’t get used today and they will be tomorrow.
The upcoming schedule is very favorable for off days so I think this more about getting a LH to replace a struggling Cosgrove than a fresh arm scenario.
As good as he was last year (surprise) he has been horrible this year in ST, MLB and AAA.
Let’s hope Davis can at least be an effective 26 man guy and then with all of the off days, maybe they won’t need him unless a blowout anyway – which is where most teams fall on player #26 on the roster anyway. Similar to my view on player #25 – you hope you don’t ever need him so is it really a high priority (or just a luxury) to have a good hitter pinning away on the bench. If he was a good hitter, he would be playing everyday!
Anyway, hoping for the best and waiting for the annual Preller deadline explosion to hit!
Everytime Padres lead by more than 5 runs, the pen somehow managed to almost blew it up. Causing Shildt to rely on Suarez way too often.
Mr Q.: there are examples of this where you wish he had not have been called upon for sure. That agreed upon however, Suarez has a similar number of games as most successful teams’ closers. He has also gone 5-6 days between games a few times due to losing streaks / not needed.
a deeper dive shows the brutal schedule that the Padres have had in June is as much to blame for overuse of the BP without a day off which then leads to some tired arms and bad outings.
Take out Joe and Yu in June – guys thst tend to go 6+ a lot, and yes, the BP was taxed as Midway said and yes, it has suffered as a result.
It should even out in July with some reasonable off days and hopefully, Yu returns soon followed by Joe in August!
Or whoever Preller brings in at deadline.
I always thought that Suarez has been called in more often than typical closers. And don’t forget that for some of the games that he pitched, he pitched for more than 3 outs.
As for Estrada, I remember reading that he lost 15 pounds due to flu. Hope he can fully recover and be back up closer in case Suarez is not available.
At this point, considering several teams injury woes to their pitcher, and several underwhelming performance from veterans, the SP market will be highly contested. I don’t think getting another SP is the move to go, with Darvish and Musgrove eventually will return.
Mr Q: Suarez has more appearances of multiple innings than most, if not all closers. Overall usage they even out – some teams with more wins and some with less, etc., have different usages for closer.
Estrada’s recent illness should be overcome in time.
Another quality SP will do the most to offset BP usage by eliminating the 4 and 5 inning starts.
You are correct that the market may be slim but the buyers may also be slim at deadline. Some higher quality SP with contour and there aren’t as many teams with the prospect capital in contention so it should shake out.
Joe and Yu – we can only hope they are back soon and effective. I’m sure SD knows A LOT more about their viability than we do so, be prepared for trade if there is bad news being held back.
Too bad Xander won’t be able to make his Fenway return tonight. As scheduling goes he may not get to play in Boston again til ’26. Davis was a mix of decent and frustrating in his time in Boston, hopefully the latter shows up for this series
Fresh is one thing , quality is the problem.
No, no, no!!! It’s all because of the schedule!!!
He-he.
Davis will always be known to me as being one half of the Davis-Chavis deal.
Big Fudge back in Boston for the weekend
Time to step up, AD and pitch like we need ya to…
Bad day to be a -sgrove pitching for the Padres