Friday, March 29

Parents notes: Musgrove good to go; Dixon’s homecoming


Maybe it was the shorter start. Maybe it’s the work put in between starts.

Either way, Joe Musgrove says the “shoulder issues” that led to him throwing just 72 pitches in his last start are behind him as he prepares for Wednesday’s start against the Dodgers. After throwing a career-high 181 1/3 innings in his first year in San Diego, Musgrove is sitting on 170 innings heading into his final two starts of the regular season, the last half of which has been quite a bit more stressful than the first.

“I don’t think it was anything to do with throwing or overuse or fatigue,” Musgrove said Tuesday afternoon. “It was just a specific exercise I did in the gym that threw my (scapula), my shoulder out of place. Kind of being out of place was causing tension there that I hadn’t had. A little bit of (physical therapy) work, a lot of manual stuff, some soft tissue work.

“I feel like everything is back in the place it should be and I feel like the arm is freed up and moving.”

Not that it was overtly apparent that anything had been off in his last start.

After striking out eight over six shutout innings in Arizona on Sept. 17, Musgrove had allowed just a solo homer in five innings on Sept. 22 when he was lifted with 72 pitches as the meat of the Cardinals’ order loomed for a third look at the Padres’ right-hander.

The way things have gone the last couple months, that might have been reason enough for Padres manager Bob Melvin to go to the bullpen as opposing hitters have a .924 OPS the third time through the order this year against Musgrove, the highest of his career and nearly 300 points above last year (.626).

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The other thing to note about Musgrove’s season is he had a 1.59 ERA through his first 12 starts and 4.45 ERA in 16 starts since his bout with COVID-19, although he pushes back against the idea that there had been any long-term lingering fatigue as he worked deeper in games.

“Just not executing pitches and a little bit predictable,” Musgrove said of his third-time-through-the-order struggles. “I feel like it’s just mental. Putting more stress on those innings late in games and adding where it doesn’t need to be added. I have to continue to pitch the way I’ve been pitching and keep going one out a time like I did early in the season.”

Dixon’s homecoming, kinda

Before migrating north to Murrieta Valley High School, where he teamed with Cubs third baseman Patrick Wisdom, Brandon Dixon was born in La Jolla and lived in Escondido until fifth grade. That made his call-up to the Padres on Tuesday a homecoming of sorts, even if his parents now live in Maui.

“It doesn’t get better than this,” Dixon said after dressing in the home clubhouse.

And the 30-year-old Dixon hadn’t been better than the last few months, smashing 23 homers while hitting .374/.442/.823 in 51 games as he climbed from Double-A San Antonio to Triple-A El Paso .

That’s right 51 games, with the majority of that damage after contemplating season-ending UCL surgery on his glove-hand elbow in May.

“It’s been a wild, wild year,” Dixon said. “A lot of ups and downs. Two months ago I was in Arizona and thinking about maybe getting surgery on my elbow and maybe being done and now I’m here. Kind of a crazy turn of events.”

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After his time at Murrieta Valley High, Dixon played collegiately at Arizona, where he was the Dodgers’ third-round pick in 2013. He was later traded to Cincinnati, appeared in 74 games with the Reds in 2018 and hit 15 homers in 117 games in Detroit the next year after he was claimed off waivers.

Dixon played the 2021 season in Japan after the Tigers released him the previous November.

Before Tuesday’s call-up, he’d mashed 13 of his 23 homers in just 25 games (1,313 OPS) with the Chihuahuas, who clinched a postseason berth on Saturday.

“I feel good; the swing feels good,” Dixon said. “I’ve made some adjustments that are paying off … and to be honest just swinging at good pitches, taking good pitches and just continuing that consistency.”

Remarkable

  • The Padres have not yet named a starter for Thursday’s series finale. Both RHP Yu Darvish and LHP Sean Manaea threw bullpen sessions Tuesday. With the Padres recently skipping Manaea on the weeks they’ve had off-days, Darvish had been lined up to start on regular rest. The Padres, of course, are nearing a postseason berth and could be beginning to think of how their rotation would line up for the wild-card series. Asked about the TBA on the schedule, Melvin said it was dependent on “a number of different things.”
  • To make room for Dixon, OF louis libato was designated for assignment. Liberato, 26, was 0-for-5 with three strikeouts in seven games in the majors after hitting .261/.354/.541 with 20 homers in 99 games at Triple-A El Paso. Liberato was signed to a minor league deal before the season after spending the previous nine years in the Mariners’ system.
  • Tuesday’s game was the 3,000th that Don Orsillo, the Padres’ TV play-by-play announce, has worked in the majors. He spent 10 years in the minors before his breakthrough with the Red Sox. Orsillo joined the Padres in 2016.
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