NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS BREWERS

October 7, 2026

Craig Stammen

Petco Park

San Diego Padres

Pregame 4 Press Conference

Q. How is the status for Mason Miller and Adrian Morejon today?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Mason should be back today, expected to be back, but obviously we haven't seen him yet in the clubhouse. So until that happens, nothing's for sure. Everything went well so far with him and his wife and should be back.

Q. And Adrian Morejon?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Adrian, waiting for him to come in and see how he's feeling. He was feeling a little bit better post-game last night. So we're hopeful today that he'll be available.

Q. You guys have seen each other's pitchers quite a bit throughout this series. In this world of video and trajec machines and all that, you still have some guys in the bullpen that haven't pitched against the Brewers yet. Do you place value on that, or is that gone with all the resources available?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, you're right. The more times a hitter faces a pitcher, the better chance the hitter has. That's the way I felt about it as a pitcher. Giving guys new looks is definitely something too. We do, we trust all our guys in the bullpen. We just had our main guys available to be able to be used in these close games, so we've used them.

Q. It's been about a week and a half since Walker has pitched. What are your expectations for him today in this outing?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Same as always. I think the last time he got a week and a half off was right around the All-Star break, and he pitched really good after that. Expecting something similar to that. Expecting playoff Walker Buehler.

Q. Were you here when Gasser was in the organization? If so, what do you know about him?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I don't know anything about him when he was in the Padres. I was in the Big Leagues when he was drafted, but I never met him or anything like that. He's had a great season, very good pitcher, and someone we've got to attack tonight.

Q. What will the process be for evaluating Adrian pregame? How do you kind of go about assessing that for him?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Kind of the same way we do throughout the regular season. Bring him in, trainers check him out, go out and play catch, see how he feels, if he wants to throw off the mound or not. Reevaluate what that looks like, how he feels, talk with him one-on-one, talk to the group, and then decide what our pitching plan is for the game.

Q. How is Gavin feeling, and is he available off the bench today?

CRAIG STAMMEN: He'll be available off the bench. I'm not sure if he's feeling any better than yesterday. He was available at the end of the game last night.

Q. When did that neck thing come about?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I thought going into the game we thought he could possibly be ready for the game. It wasn't a for sure. We got word pretty soon once the game started that he was available.

Q. If you wouldn't mind discussing Walker's journey this year, sort of the evolution into this version of himself and all the work he put in to turn into this guy. Obviously pretty different than who he used to be.

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think the first thing is he felt healthy this year. This is the first time he pitched without his elbow hurting for as long as he can remember. That's number one. That gives the pitcher peace of mind. Then him used to pitching with the big four-seam curveball sweeper mix, he realized: I don't have that anymore. I have a new elbow, a new body, I'm a little older, but a better pitcher.

He went about mixing his pitches and trying to figure out what works best for him. I think over the course of the season he's figured out how he can have success with the stuff he has.

Q. You had mentioned that you're expecting playoff Walker Buehler. What does playoff Walker Buehler look like to you?

CRAIG STAMMEN: He's a very successful pitcher in the playoffs. That's what it looks like.

Q. What is he doing well in the playoffs to make him so successful?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think it's his mindset, what he is and what he believes in. He believes in himself. He believes he's the best pitcher for our team out on the mound. That's not something every player has in the playoffs with the pressure and the adrenaline. We saw that in Michael King last night, and Walker's got a little of that in him also.

Q. A 162-game season, there may be days we don't see Adrian and we don't know nothing that's going on. Is anything he's dealing with now similar to anything he's dealt with this year?

CRAIG STAMMEN: That's a good question. Probably, but not specifically. If that's a good answer. I think it's easier for us obviously during the regular season to give him days off or to give him three days off in a row like we have during the season. The playoffs, it's just very heightened, and I'm getting questions asked about it every day. He's expected to pitch in every game. So when he doesn't, there's a lot of questions that arise.

Number one, what we've done with all the pitchers and what we do as an organization is we try to take care of them. We try to take care of Adrian as best we can.

Q. Your DH today, Hays, how did you come to that decision? You've got Andujar on the bench as well.

CRAIG STAMMEN: We have a couple righty options against a lefty pitcher. Hays has been in the spot here at the end of the season. He's done really well against left-handed pitching in his career and here in this last month so far. Andujar was also in consideration. We like him coming off the bench for a big at-bat. Similar to last night. He had a couple of pinch-hit at-bats. Didn't end in hits, but worked the pitcher and created some havoc.

Q. Yuki, his confidence level from where it was at the start of the year to where it is now, where did that happen for you, and how have you seen him take hold of that job?

CRAIG STAMMEN: We talked about it a little bit and Ty France earning that at-bat. Yuki's earned every appearance he's had this year. Going into the season, he wasn't necessarily someone you were counting on to be your back-end leverage pitcher.

When he came up, he was okay with the role of pitching more than one inning. He went two innings, three innings a couple times. He was a little more longer relief pitching when we were down, and he's earned more opportunities. We kept giving it to him, and he kept having success.

We've seen even more of that here in the playoffs. He's pretty much taken down a lot of their lefties. Every time they've come in a tight spot, Yuki's been able to get the job done.

Q. How would you describe the nature of this series to this point? Postseason baseball is always tense, but it doesn't seem like there's been a single relaxing moment for this team.

CRAIG STAMMEN: It's been three great games, exactly what a real baseball fan loves about playoff baseball. For us to be a part of it, it's been a privilege. It's been awesome to go against the Brewers, a great team. It will be another tight one tonight, I suspect.

Q. You're obviously plenty familiar with Walker before the season. Is there anything you learned about him as a person or competitor this year that you couldn't possibly know without being in the building with him every day?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Playing against him, you assume a lot of things, how somebody is from across the field. You want to beat them so bad in one way, and now they're on your team and you try to figure out what makes them tick and why he's been so successful.

I think a lot of what we believed about Walker has turned out to be pretty true.

Q. This might sound silly, but I have to ask because it's Michael King. Is he available for Game 4?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yes.

Q. Really?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah.

Q. Okay.

(Laughter)?

CRAIG STAMMEN: We're at that point in the season where it's everybody, whatever they can give us, we're going to use. There is no tomorrow if we don't win tonight.

Q. Joe Musgrove got hot, I believe twice last night. How do you sort of envision him in the hierarchy of this bullpen? Like what's the lane that makes sense for him?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think Joe, we need more information a little bit on him because he hasn't pitched a ton this year. You're basing a lot of what you expect of him from past performance or who he was in the past. Kind of what we've seen with him before we activated him.

He's always been able to get righties and lefties out. He's got that starter mix. So we feel good about him really anywhere in the lineup.

Q. When you were pitching, did you have any times where you and your wife, you're expecting a baby during a real critical time of year, and what is that like to manage? Then kind of giving us an idea of what Walker and Mason had to go through with all this stuff. A lot going on.

CRAIG STAMMEN: You're right. My daughter Summit, her birthday is tomorrow. Happy birthday, Summit. She'll be 7 years old tomorrow, so pretty exciting. In that season, we didn't have a chance of making the playoffs. We prepped for that ahead of time in the middle of the season. What we would talk about, my wife has played sports her whole life, coached college volleyball for ten-plus years. She knows the gig.

Obviously you want to be there for the birth, and then anything after that, it's about she was all right with me going and playing. That's kind of how we operated. Not everybody's like that. Not everybody is going to have that same situation. A lot of people want to spend those three or four days together with the baby and being a part of that process because it's a miracle and you want to be a part of it.

Everybody has a different situation, a different way of looking at it, a different expectation. There's always health implications that go with it, and the number one thing is you want a healthy baby and you want Mom and Dad to enjoy it. I think we've been able to accomplish that with the two births we've had here in October.

Q. Since you've been in the Padre organization, even the front office, is this the best you've seen Xander Bogaerts play for this stretch he's on now?

CRAIG STAMMEN: He had a pretty good first year. He finished that season really strong. Even though we didn't make it to the playoffs that year.

Last year in the Wild Card series, I know it was short, he had a great Wild Card series. Seems like Xander plays his best when the games matter the most, which has been his pedigree throughout his entire career. It's great to see him playing at his peak right now.

Q. This may seem like a silly question to you, but just don't want to assume that Mason's wife had the baby and the baby is healthy?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, I think Mason will announce all that stuff when he feels comfortable doing that. I don't feel like it's my place to announce, but everything went well yesterday.