Have the San Diego Padres finally found its missing rotation piece in this unlikely starter?

Things started to look gloomy for the San Diego Padres just a week ago. They were swept by the Tampa Bay Rays to cap a four-game losing streak, and it felt like the season was taking a turn in the wrong direction. In baseball, though, the emotional rollercoaster of a full season will reel you back in after a successful series, and that is just what occurred this past weekend. The Friars swept the Pittsburgh Pirates on the road, thanks to some individual heroism from Fernando Tatis Jr., as well as the promotion of right-handed pitcher Stephen Kolek.

Making the first start of his MLB career, the 28-year-old fired 5 1/3 scoreless frames with four strikeouts to pave San Diego to a 4-0 victory in Sunday's series-clinching win. With Kolek's sudden success, the Padres community is back on the positive bandwagon, and now they can't help but wonder: Is Stephen Kolek the cemented answer to the fifth spot in the rotation?

San Diego was going with a four-man starting rotation since Kyle Hart was optioned a few weeks ago, which obviously is not sustainable across a full season.

Enter Kolek, who never started a game in his big league career. He made 42 relief appearances in 2024 with San Diego and never threw more than two innings at a time. Kolek made a superb first impression, however, and recorded a 1-2-3 inning in the first - including a strikeout on Oneil Cruz to begin the day,

A major change to his sequencing, compared to 2024, was throwing a slider more often. Last year, he threw that pitch under 10 percent of the time. On Sunday, he spun a slider over 20 percent of the time, which resulted in four batted outs and two strikeouts. Kolek is a sinker-baller, so that sinker-slider combination proved effective on Sunday. This will be something to keep an eye out for moving forward.

With Michael King, Dylan Cease, and Nick Pivetta holding it down, the Padres threw a flyer on Randy Vasquez and Kyle Hart to complete the rotation. Hart obviously didn't work out, and Vasquez has reached expectations, donning a 3.90 ERA in seven starts. The hole in the final spot in the rotation was worrisome, especially in Yu Darvish's absence, but hopefully Kolek can be that guy to fulfill a rotation that is otherwise pretty strong.