The San Diego Padres moved Matt Waldron to the IL as they promoted Alek Jacob to provide bullpen help.
The San Diego Padres continue to shuffle pieces as they try to shore up the back end of their rotation, and they’re sending erstwhile starter Matt Waldron to the IL while bringing up Alek Jacob. The moves were announced in a report from Josh Kirshenbaum of MLB,com along with multiple other outlets.
Waldron has had some rough starts for San Diego so far, but he made his best appearance of the season against the Milwaukee Brewers, throwing a pair of scoreless innings. It was his first appearance as a reliever this year, but the aftermath didn’t go as well as the Padres hoped it would.
“We were pitching him on short rest,” said manager Craig Stammen. “Feel like he came into the game feeling good, all reports were that he was good to go. But after the game, got a little stiffer than usual, a little bit more tired, a little sore today. So we had to make a move to get him out of there.”
The Padres currently don’t have a concrete plan for Waldron going forward, and there may be some fudging going on here in putting him on the IL. Waldron is out of options, and the Padres know he’d almost certainly be picked up quickly by another team if they designated him for assignment.
“A lot of guys go through this type of thing and try to pitch through it, which is what he was trying to do,” Stammen said. “And then it finally gets to a certain point where it’s like, ‘I’m not as good as I should be when I’m out on the mound.’ I think that’s what he was starting to feel, like, ‘If I’m going to be out there, I want to be 100%. I don’t want to be at 80% trying to gut it out.’ He didn’t need to do that. Now we have time to be able to settle him down a bit and get him back out there when he’s 100%.”
That sound a lot like backtracking, but the Padres really didn’t have any choice. Waldron has been costing them games, and while he could still have value as a reliever, the right-hander could still be a victim of the numbers crunch on a picking staff that has a lot of talent. They’re going day-by-day and week-by-week here, and this move buys the Padres another week.
“Eventually, we were going to have to make a move this week,” Stammen added when he was asked about the plan, “… We’ll get to that point when we get to that point.
“Matt, we feel very good with him on our team. We like what he brings to the table. He gives us a lot of options, rotation depth, he can pitch out of the bullpen, he’s got a unique pitch. Hopefully it doesn’t take long and we can get him back soon.”