The Padres are placing starter Randy Vásquez on the 15-day injured list and catcher Freddy Fermin on the 10-day IL, reports Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Vásquez has a bruised right ankle, while Fermin has a head bruise. San Diego will reinstate Luis Campusano from the injured list and recall reliever Alek Jacob from Triple-A El Paso to fill the active roster spots.
It’s another challenge for a reeling pitching staff. The Padres have allowed the sixth-most runs in MLB over the past month. Their rotation has logged the third-fewest innings and has a 5.27 earned run average over that stretch. Vásquez bears his share of responsibility for that, as he has gotten pummeled since the beginning of June. The 27-year-old righty had been one of the team’s two best starters in April, but he hasn’t been able to maintain his early-season uptick in whiffs.
Vásquez hasn’t escaped the fourth inning in any of his past three starts. It has been nearly two months since his most recent quality start. He’s up to a 4.71 ERA across 84 innings on the season. His 16.3% strikeout rate is only up a couple percentage points relative to last year and is a bottom 10 mark among pitchers with at least 80 frames.
That the Padres have continued running Vásquez out every fifth day is an indictment of their rotation. Michael King has managed a 3.55 ERA on the season but has also struggled to miss bats lately. Walker Buehler had a strong June, then got destroyed by the Cubs on Thursday. Griffin Canning and JP Sears have a combined 7.06 ERA in 57 1/3 innings.
San Diego has lost six in a row and dropped back to .500. They’ve fallen 3.5 games back in the Wild Card picture. King, Canning and Sears will take the ball over the next three games against the Dodgers. Buehler will probably start Monday’s series opener against Arizona. Germán Márquez should step into Vásquez’s rotation spot. Márquez tossed three innings of mop-up relief upon returning from a two-month IL stay yesterday.
Fermin goes back on the injured list not long after missing time with a concussion. Campusano returns from a two-month absence due to a toe fracture. He’d been out to a hot start and will try to carry that over for as long as he’s the primary catcher. Rodolfo Durán sticks around on the big league roster in a backup role.
