San Diego pitcher Joe Musgrove needs Tommy John elbow ligament surgery and won’t be available for the Padres’ Major League Baseball playoff clash with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team said Friday.
“Replacing Joe Musgrove is a tall order,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said.
“Good news is we have people that we trust, and we have a deep pitching group, as we know,” Shildt said. “But Joe’s Joe. He’s a presence, physical presence … He’s a special individual, but I can tell you we’ll be just fine and compete.”
Musgrove has a 2.82 earned-run average in four post-season starts for the Padres, including allowing one run in 3 2/3 innings on Wednesday, when the Padres clinched their first-round series against the Atlanta Braves.
But the right-hander, who departed that game in the fourth as his pitch velocity dropped, said he had been pitching through discomfort for a couple of weeks “and just felt like I was at the point where my stuff wasn’t any good.”
The team did not immediately name a replacement for Musgrove on the roster. Shildt has Dylan Cease scheduled to start game one against the Dodgers on Saturday with Japanese veteran Yu Darvish slated to pitch game two of the best-of-five series.
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