Padres’ back-end rotation warning is arriving earlier than anyone wanted

This is the part Padres fans were hoping they could put off for at least the first month of the season. Just long enough to pretend the back of the rotation might hold together with a few encouraging flashes. Instead, five games into the season, that concern is already sitting right in the middle of the table.

Walker Buehler’s first start and Germán Márquez’s debut feel a little heavier than a normal early-season shrug. Buehler lasted four innings against the Giants on March 30, allowing three earned runs on five hits with two walks and three strikeouts while throwing 72 pitches. A night later, Márquez got hit even harder, allowing four runs over three innings, including two home runs, as San Diego dropped to 1-4, its worst five-game start since 2018. 

Padres are already seeing the risky side of Walker Buehler and Germán Márquez

They signed Buehler and Márquez in mid-February because the rotation was thin, Joe Musgrove was not ready to open the season, and the club needed credible innings from recognizable veterans. It made sense for those two to be the winners of the final rotation spots while Musgrove works his way back, and both pitchers have been trying to rediscover themselves after major elbow procedures in recent years. 

The Padres weren’t adding prime versions of these guys. They were betting on the idea that experience, pedigree, and a change of scenery could patch over some very real uncertainty. Sometimes that kind of bet works. Sometimes it just gives you a more famous version of the same problem.

So far, it looks a lot more like the second one.

Buehler’s outing was not a total mess. He said afterward there were positives to take from it, and honestly, that is fair. He described his performance as showing “flashes of quality,” which is a polite way of saying there were moments where you could see the outline of the pitcher the Padres were hoping to get. But he also admitted he needs to throw more strikes and get into better counts, which gets right to the issue. The Padres do not need occasional reminders of who Buehler used to be. They need innings and efficiency. 

Márquez’s debut was more alarming because it looked like a pitcher without his best weapon. Padres manager Craig Stammen said afterward that Márquez did not have his breaking ball, calling it his “bread and butter.” If the breaking stuff is not there, then the version of Márquez the Padres are counting on gets a lot less convincing in a hurry. 

And that is the larger issue here. These two were never supposed to be the glamorous part of San Diego’s pitching plan. The Padres just needed them to stabilize the back end of the rotation. The “just get us through this” guys. The problem is that when the back end starts leaking this early, it doesn’t stay a back-end issue for long. It bleeds into the bullpen and puts more pressure on the offense. It makes every game feel a little tighter than it should. 

There is still time for both veterans to settle in. It is April 1. Nobody should be burying the season because two starters looked shaky the first time out. But the Padres also do not get extra credit because the names sound familiar. Known names can calm a conversation. But they don’t calm a lineup turning over for the second and third time in the fourth inning.