San Diego Padres right-hander Joe Musgrove exited his start on Wednesday night against the Atlanta Braves in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series with right elbow tightness, the team announced. Musgrove's departure came during the fourth inning, after delivering a 76.8 mph curveball to Marcell Ozuna. Musgrove threw 41 pitches on the night: three of those final four tosses represented his three slowest offerings on the game.
It was not initially clear what, precisely, was bugging Musgrove, but catcher Kyle Higashioka appeared to motion to the dugout before heading to the mound to make sure that Musgrove was OK. Musgrove is set to undergo imaging on Thursday.
Musgrove, 31, was limited to 19 starts this season because of inflammation in his right elbow. He missed several weeks in May, then was sidelined from May 26 until August 12. When Musgrove was able to pitch, he compiled a 3.88 ERA (106 ERA+) and a 4.39 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His contributions were worth an estimated 1.7 Wins Above Replacement, according to Baseball Reference's calculations.
The elbow issue Musgrove left with had seemingly little impact on his velocity or his performance prior to the late stages. His fastball averaged 94.4 mph on the evening, more than a tick up on his seasonal average. Additionally, he held the Braves to one run on one hit and no walks over 3 2/3 innings pitched. Musgrove struck out four of the 12 batters he faced along the way.
The Padres held a 5-1 lead at the time of Musgrove's departure. With a win, San Diego will advance to the best-of-five NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The winner of that series, meanwhile, will proceed to play for the pennant.
It's too early to know if Musgrove's availability heading forward will be impacted.