The San Diego Padres had to shut down Nick Pivetta due to arm fatigue, but he finally made his first start yesterday.
The San Diego Padres have been struggling to get the healthy version of their frontline starters on the mound so far, but they got some good news yesterday when Nick Pivetta made his first start of the spring against the Cleveland Guardians, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com.
Pivetta has been sidelined so far in spring training due to what manager Craig Stammen called “arm fatigue,” but the work he’s been doing in the background has been paying off, even though he gave up two runs in three-plus innings against Cleveland.
“I think I knew beforehand, to be honest with you,” Pivetta said. “I threw a good side [session] a couple days ago, so I think there are more checkmarks along the way than just this game today. Everything else leading up to that was pretty much where it needed to be.”
The big box Pivetta checked in this start, though was velocity. He lives up in the zone a lot, so he needs to be able to sit at 94-96 mph, which he was able to do yesterday.
“Even before this, the last couple days, he was feeling really good,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “Obviously you're always in the back of your head a little worried about it, but at this point, I think we're in good shape.”
Even better, Pivetta opened up the third inning with a pair of strikeouts, which is a good sign in terms of the overall arc of his ramp-up. He allowed two runners to reach base in the fourth, so that was the end of the day given that he’s nowhere close to being stretched out.
“Everything seemed to click pretty well; the rest seemed to do me right,” Pivetta said. “It was just nice to be back out there, feel the mound again, face hitters; just a good day. I think for the past couple days it's been feeling better. Ever since I took a couple days and tried to get back to it, it seemed to progress as I continued to move forward. It seems like I'm on track.”
According to Feinsand, this isn’t the first time he’s dealt with arm fatigue. It’s an intermittent problem, but it was especially problematic given the fragile state of the Padres’ rotation right now.
“I think for me, it's just something that comes and goes,” Pivetta said. “We have a great training staff, great staff in general, [pitching coach] Ruben [Niebla] has been great. Just being able to be adults and big leaguers, just professional athletes, just getting things moving and getting the treatment I needed to feel healthy again.”
The question going forward is how much of a workload the Padres will ask Pivetta to shoulder. He pitched big innings last season, and San Diego needs him to do it again. There are a lot of innings to be picked up with starter Joe Musgrove currently in a “holding pattern,” according to Stammen, and the Padres need Pivetta to pitch as many of them as possible.