Padres Are Stuck Between A Rock and A Hard Place With Germán Márquez and Griffin Canning

As we hit the end of June, the San Diego Padres' rotation picture remains as clouded as ever. 

Michael King is entrenched at the top of the starting five. We know that much. Randy Vásquez continues to provide decent-enough volume to stick around as part of the group despite increasingly alarming peripherals. From there, it gets messy. Lucas Giolito is now on the injured list with JP Sears up to replace him. Germán Márquez is nearing the end of a rehab assignment before his 5.76 ERA can rejoin the group. Griffin Canning has struggled mightily with his command, while each of Nick Pivetta & Joe Musgrove remain out indefinitely. 

If you're keeping track, that's two certainties for five spots, three massive question marks in the middle, and three injured arms on the other end. The Padres had Wandy Peralta serve as an opener on Tuesday with Sears scheduled to take the ball on Wednesday. They'll have an off day before circling back to Vásquez to open their series with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday. Which means that the most pressing question at this exact moment — how the team should handle Márquez & Canning upon the former's return — will get pushed to at least the weekend. 

It's difficult to imagine that the Padres would be comfortable running out both pitchers in their rotation given their respective struggles. While Giolito's absence does make it possible (as does Sears' ability to move to El Paso), each of Márquez and Canning have represented the starters with the largest hurdles to overcome in 2026. 

Prior to hitting the IL with a forearm injury, Márquez had made six starts for the Padres. He pitched to a 5.76 ERA, 6.64 FIP, a 14.8 percent strikeout rate, and a 9.4 percent walk rate. While his command fell within the neighborhood of "middling" from a walks perspective, his continually waning 94.3 MPH fastball velocity and precisely average (by Stuff+) knuckle-curve couldn't avoid hard contact; Márquez's 45.8 percent hard-hit rate sits in just the ninth percentile league-wide.

Canning, meanwhile, has struggled with his command on the other side of the spectrum. His ERA sits at 7.38, largely due to the fact that he's walking more hitters than ever (13.7 percent). When hitters do swing, they're doing more damage than they were against Márquez in the hard-hit game, with Canning posting a 50.4 percent rate in that respect. He's had his moments, with a clean five-inning start against the New York Mets on June 6 and a 4.1 inning, one-run outing following an opener against St. Louis on June 17. The issue is that in between those kind of outings, he's had clunkers like a seven-run start on June 12 and a pair of six-run starts earlier in his Padres tenure. His second bulk outing saw him unable to finish even an inning and being credit for four runs before Kyle Hart cleaned up the bases he left loaded.

Fresh as that particular outing may be, neither arm is one that's going to inspire much confidence. As such, determining which the Padres could go when Márquez is ready to return becomes a difficult task. 

In the case of Márquez, he's coming off four successful rehab outings with El Paso. He's thrown 15.1 innings, allowed three runs in total, and has his velocity up to 95.1 MPH. There's also more of an established track record (even if not terribly recently) to the point where the Padres may feel more comfortable rolling with him if they had to choose. Especially in the face of Canning's command woes. 

Even if the Friars wanted to get creative, something like piggybacking appears out of the question. Márquez has an 8.49 ERA his first time through the order while Canning features a 6.61 figure through the first pass. Given the inability to option either pitcher, it may be something they explore nevertheless, especially if they feel it can offer a bit more volume than they'd get from either arm on their own.

Volume is, realistically, going to be the name of the game here. Neither pitcher is in a situation that offers Craig Stammen's squad legitimate upside, even if Márquez is showcasing improved velocity while out on rehab assignment. He has, though, given them 4.8 innings per start this year while Canning's down at 4.6 innings per start (excluding his bulk appearances out of the bullpen). If it's as simple as those two components, then perhaps the edge goes to Márquez. At the same time, maybe they feel as if Canning deserves a bit more runway himself in still working his way back to full strength from last year's Achilles injury. Tuesday's appearance could sap them of that patience, though.

If this feels like stretching to make a case for one, that's the situation in which the Padres find themselves. It was always a volume approach to rounding out the rotation with the hope being that someone would latch onto a gig and run with it. That hasn't happened, to the point where the team likely is not going to be comfortable allowing each to retain their own spot even in the absence of three other starting pitchers.

Given the development on Tuesday, it does feel like it'll be Márquez next time around, whether out of the gate or working in bulk. With such a shallow pool from which to choose, though, it's anybody's guess how this plays out over the remainder of the 2026 campaign.