The severity of the fracture is yet to be known, nor is the recommended treatment. However, Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove has suffered a fracture in his big toe on his left foot. The team announced the injury, early Tuesday.
It’s safe to presume that Musgrove may miss some meaningful time, especially with the loss of two weeks in spring training. Without throwing during that two weeks, he will need to revamp his preparation when he is ready to return. A fracture of the toe may require a walking boot, and even with that an injury to the landing foot may prove to be problematic when Joe Musgrove returns. This type of injury news, was definitely not what the team nor Musgrove wanted to hear, especially as the 30-year-old is headed into the first season of a five-year, $100MM contract extension signed last July.
He’s fresh off an All-Star season that saw him pitch to a sterling 2.93 ERA in 181 innings, fanning a strong 24.9% of hitters against a similarly impressive 5.7% walk rate along the way. Musgrove also ranked among the best in the league in terms of suppressing hard contact, landing in the 90th percentile of MLB pitchers with an 86.4 mph average exit velocity and in the 88th percentile with just a 32.4% hard-hit rate.
For the most part, Musgrove has been durable in his career. He has made 30 starts and tallied 170 innings in each of the last three 162-game seasons. The right-handed pitcher missed about three weeks during the 2020 season due to triceps inflammation. This past season, he spent one week on the COVID-related injury list.
If Musgrove is unavailable to start the season, teammate Yu Darvish will most likely get the Opening Day nod. Darvish was recently given a six-year, $108M contract extension. He’d be followed by lefty Blake Snell, recently signed right-hander Michael Wacha, and reliever-turned-starters Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo. The Padres may be in line to go with a six-man rotation to help the workload of the latter two. Neither has thrown over 110 innings.
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