Padres' Mike Shildt Not Losing Faith Despite Injuries: 'Winners Find Solutions'

They'll have to overcome significant adversity to maintain their spot as contenders.

David Frerker-USA TODAY Sports

The San Diego Padres earned the first two wins of their series against the Kansas City Royals, but they lost their top-two starting pitchers to the injured list. The Padres placed both Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove on the IL Saturday morning, prior to earning their 7-3 win against the Royals.

Both pitchers are on their second trip to the IL. Darvish went to the IL back in mid-April with neck tightness, and is now set to miss time with a left groin strain. The positive is that the injury is not serious, and not expected to cause him to miss significant time this season.

Meanwhile, Musgrove returns to the IL due to elbow inflammation again. He had already missed most of May with the same issue. With Musgrove and Darvish out, the Padres are recalling Randy Vásquez and reliever Logan Gillaspie to fill their rotation spots.

Even with these crucial injuries, Padres managed Mike Shildt is not letting these losses deter the team, who are in the thick of wild-card contention.

“Your challenges are what ultimately identify you,” Shildt said, via Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Winners find solutions. We’ll figure it out. Randy (Vásquez) will step up today and pitch well, we’ll swing the bats, play good defense, go play good clean baseball and look to shake hands. It’s gonna take an entire roster to perform for this year’s team and we’ve gotten a lot of contributions from guys and now we take it to the next step.”

So far, Darvish is 4-3 this season with a 3.20 ERA through 11 starts. Musgrove is currently 3-4 with a 5.66 ERA through 10 starts.

The Padres will have to hold up without these two. To that end, starting pitcher Michael King has been strong lately after shaking off his early season struggles.

On Sunday, King pitched seven innings and gave up just one earned run. He's allowed only one earned run over his last two games.

The Padres have also managed to hold up with Vásquez starting recently, including their win Saturday. If they can hang in there despite injuries to their rotation — and star infielder Luis Arraez — the Padres should be able to hang around the wild-card pack until their veterans return.