The Padres are planning to activate right-hander Griffin Canning on Sunday, in accordance with Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The righty can be making his 2026 and Padres debut within the sequence finale towards the White Sox.
Canning joined the Padres in February on a one-year, $2.5MM assure. He underwent surgical procedure final June to restore a ruptured left Achilles, which worn out the rest of his season with the Mets. Upon signing with San Diego, it was thought that Canning could possibly be prepared for Opening Day, although he finally required a rehab project at Triple-A. He made his last look in that project on Tuesday, reaching 68 pitches over 5 innings. Primarily based on that development, Canning is perhaps on a pitch restrict in his debut earlier than assuming a full starter’s workload subsequent time round.
Though the Achilles harm restricted Canning to only 76 1/3 innings with the Mets final 12 months, he confirmed some enchancment over his profession numbers. For one factor, he did a greater job of maintaining the ball within the yard. After surrendering 31 dwelling runs in 171 2/3 innings with the Angels in 2024, or 1.63 per 9 innings, Canning reduce that to 0.93 HR/9 in 2025. He additionally confirmed a marked enhance in groundball fee, hitting an above common 50.9% after sitting round common in 2023-24. It wasn’t all optimistic, as Canning’s 21.3% strikeout fee and 10.7% stroll fee had been each worse than common. Altogether, although, it was sufficient for the Padres to signal him to a major-league deal as a back-of-the-rotation arm.
Canning’s arrival may doubtlessly result in adjustments within the Padres’ rotation. Michael King and the emergent Randy Vásquez have the primary two spots locked in, with Walker Buehler, Germán Márquez, and Matt Waldron rounding out the group. The latter three haven’t been good to date in 2026. Whereas Buehler’s 5.40 ERA is sort of two runs larger than his 3.42 FIP, his lackluster efficiency in 2024-25 provides little hope for a turnaround. Márquez and Waldron are equally ineffective choices. Márquez is giving up greater than two dwelling runs per 9 innings, and Waldron has an unpleasant 9.88 ERA in three begins.
If the Padres needed to stay with a standard five-man rotation, a case could possibly be made for any one in all Buehler, Márquez, and Waldron to get reduce primarily based on their efficiency. Nonetheless, stories from yesterday indicated that the membership could take into account a six-man rotation. In that state of affairs, the trio may maintain onto their spots for one or two extra turns till the recently-signed Lucas Giolito is introduced up from his non-obligatory project.
Photograph courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Photographs
