NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS BREWERS

October 3, 2026

Craig Stammen

American Family Field

San Diego Padres

Pregame 1 Press Conference

Q. We know how you feel about family, so pretty sure know where you're going to be coming from on this, but Walker Buehler and the timing and all that, just kind of want to get your thoughts on that?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, exciting time for him and his wife to be having a baby this weekend, happens to be during the Division Series, which is exciting.

Don't have any word on what's going on yet but it could happen at any moment. I'm sure there will be stuff that comes out when it does happen. But excited for the Buehler family.

Q. How did it play into your decision to go with Robbie Ray?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, I think we didn't want Walker having to pitch on a possible day of the birth of his child and miss that. I think it made sense that he's able to stay in San Diego and allow that happen and not having to worry about pitching and that going on at the same time.

Q. Fifteen hitters is a lot of hitters but you've made use of all of them in the Wild Card series. What do you kind of make of the way everything kind of blends with this offensive group that you have?

CRAIG STAMMEN: We have a lot of good hitters. It's really hard to choose from honestly and I guess the way the roster's constructed, we feel like we have the ability to match up in certain spots of our roster. We've got hitters that are capable of doing different things against different pitchers. And we just want to give ourselves the best advantage in that space.

Q. What went into the decision to use Campusano at DH today?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think Misiorowski having reverse splits. He's pretty tough on left handers this year. I think he's got a .114 batting average against and all the other stats are low.

Righties seem to have a slight chance against him. He's been great against everybody.

But Campy's been swinging it well for us all year. We like his right-hand bat. He hits righty and left pretty well. We talked about Campy, if Salas was catching, Campy being the DH. When we called Ethan up, that was kind of a discussion -- in a big game where we have Campy DHing, and today's that day.

Q. Michael is as mild mannered as he gets with us. What's it like with him on game day, with him on the mound, what's that like?

CRAIG STAMMEN: You know what, Michael's pretty locked in, he's focused and intense. I tell him that the East Coast in him comes out on those days.

But I think that's what gets him in the right mode. And pulling him from a game is never easy. He believes in himself. And that's what you want from every pitcher. You want them to want the ball, keep it, stay in the game and not let the manager take it from you.

Q. Managing that Game 1 with him flirting with the no-hitter, what was that calculus like in your mind? How far would you let him go?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Throwing a no-hitter in the postseason is one of those things that's like history. You have to weigh that a little bit.

I wasn't thinking about it at that point. His pitch count was starting to creep a little bit and we're focused on winning the game. The playoffs are a little bit different. You gotta try to win the game.

But also there's a piece of history that's in there, too. If he would have kept his pitch count down, you know, probably the pitcher in me would have been, like, we're gonna leave him out there until he gives a hit up. But we'll never know.

Q. Did any part of you exhale when Manny didn't get that?

CRAIG STAMMEN: No, not at all.

Q. In the last round Wild Card you had to face the likely NL MVP in Pete Crow-Armstrong. Now have you to face the likely NL Cy Young Award winner in Jacob Misiorowski. What makes Jacob so difficult to face?

CRAIG STAMMEN: That's welcome to the playoffs. We're gonna keep facing a lot of good players. And the Brewers have a lot of good guys in the lineup too. And he's not their only good pitcher.

But he's a big challenge. It will be a great challenge for our offense today. He's one of the best in the game. He throws harder than anybody in the game. So it's gonna be a great challenge, and I think we're up for it.

Q. Knowing that you'll probably get Walker back at some point during the series, how are you viewing Randy Vasquez's roster spot and role for the next couple games?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Randy just gives us a lot of options as far as where we could use them. Gives us length. Gives us somebody that we can get right-handers out really well. You know, he's been a starter so he can get righty and lefty out.

He's been better against righties. So we could use him, you know, any way we wanted to. He started for us. He pitched out of the bullpen. So we feel good about him in any role.

Q. (Indiscernible)?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, exactly. I think it's been awesome seeing Joe be able to recover, pitch in a playoff game, and then play catch the next day and feel fine, keep playing catch every day and ready to go.

So the goal for Joe is to keep giving him more opportunities to pitch and for him to be a weapon for us out of the bullpen.

Q. How did Randy respond to not initially being on the Wild Card roster and not initially being on the Division Series, and how prepared was he to go ahead and step in any role that you guys need for him?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, I think not being on the Wild Card series probably had a lot to do with him pitching in the last game of the season and pitching so well and pitching six innings. Just didn't feel like he was gonna be able to bounce back quick enough to be viable for the Wild Card roster.

Luckily, that's only a three-game series. You don't really need more starters, you don't need as much length in that.

As far as the Division Series goes, we knew Walker's baby was due at some point coming up and that this was a possibility. So we tried to prep Randy for that as best we could. It just happened that today's the day that we take Walker off and add Randy on.

But it's nice to have a guy like Randy Vasquez that was on the outside and you can put him on the roster.

Q. Did Randy have a pretty good idea that there was a good chance he could be activated for this series?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, definitely. I think there was other pitchers we left like Wandy Peralta. We talked about all those guys, Griffin Canning, kind of prepped all those guys for a decision. And then we huddled up and tried to make the best decision we could.