The Padres placed reliever Jeremiah Estrada on the 15-day injured list minutes before tonight’s game against the Rockies. Jason Adam takes his place in the bullpen, as he has been reinstated from his own IL stint. Estrada is battling elbow tendinitis.
It’s the first roster move of the regular season for the Padres. San Diego’s Opening Day 26-man roster had been unchanged until tonight. They’ll swap out righty setup men at the back of Craig Stammen’s bullpen.
Estrada has been one of the better relievers in MLB over the past couple seasons. He combined for 134 frames of 3.22 ERA ball between 2024-25. Estrada fanned 36.3% of opposing hitters over that stretch, the sixth-best rate among relievers with at least 50 innings. Mason Miller, Edwin Díaz, Josh Hader, Aroldis Chapman and Devin Williams were the only pitchers who recorded higher strikeout rates. Estrada doesn’t get the same level of fanfare, in part because he hasn’t had many save opportunities, but he tied for fifth in MLB with 30 holds a year ago.
The righty hasn’t been as sharp this year. Estrada has allowed six runs (four earned) on five hits and walks apiece across seven innings. He has recorded eight strikeouts but his swinging strike rate has dropped four percentage points. Estrada’s average fastball has tumbled from 98 mph to 95. He indicated last night that he’d felt fine physically (link via Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune). The tendinitis diagnosis buys them some time to see if they can get him right physically and mechanically.
Adam is back from last year’s season-ending quad surgery. The righty suffered a tendon rupture in his left quad at the beginning of September. He’d hoped to make it back for Opening Day. Adam didn’t make his spring debut until a few days before the start of the regular season. The Padres shelved him to begin the year but immediately sent him on a rehab assignment to Triple-A El Paso. He fired five scoreless innings during his ramp-up, albeit with just one strikeout and a diminished 92.9 mph average fastball.
The IL swap delays a tough roster decision in an excellent San Diego bullpen. Ron Marinaccio is their eighth reliever on paper, but he’s out of options. He has tossed 7 2/3 frames of two-run ball to begin the season and would probably get claimed off waivers. Assuming they want to keep Kyle Hart in long relief, they’d either have needed to DFA Marinaccio or option one of David Morgan or Bradgley Rodriguez to create a bullpen spot for Adam.
