The San Diego Padres shored up their rotation at the trade deadline Monday, acquiring left-hander Robbie Ray from the San Francisco Giants and right-hander Casey Mize from the Detroit Tigers.
The Padres, who are 11 games behind the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West, have gone 8-2 in their past 10 games to vault back into contention in the wild-card race, just one game out of the final spot entering Monday.
The surge was enough to persuade president of baseball operations A.J. Preller to take yet another couple of huge swings at a postseason push.
"We're trying to win," Preller said. "We don't apologize for it. We're trying to win championships. We're trying to get to the postseason, and do it year after year."
San Diego, which also got third baseman Gage Workman from the Tigers, approached this trade deadline with a need for starting pitching as its rotation has posted a 4.66 ERA -- fourth highest in the major leagues.
Preller sent prospects Joniel Hernandez and Miguel Mendez to the Giants, who will pay part of Ray's $25 million salary, and Kash Mayfield and Jackson Wolf to the Tigers.
Other than Michael King, the Padres don't have any starting pitchers they can count on going deep into games, prompting the team to implement a high-wire bullpen act on most nights.
The Padres are hopeful of getting Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta back eventually from the injured list, but they still have several steps to clear before rejoining the rotation.
"We're definitely excited to have them," infielder Xander Bogaerts said of Ray and Mize before the Padres opened a key four-game series against the Diamondbacks. "We've been playing some good ball as of late. I think we showed them enough. We've got to continue doing that, obviously, with the nice additions that we have. Adding two guys of that caliber definitely boosts everyone in the clubhouse."
San Diego has had 14 total starts by a left-hander this season, the fourth fewest in the majors. None of those qualified as a quality start. Ray, meanwhile, has nine quality starts -- and five in his past seven outings.
In his five June starts, Ray, 34, went 4-0 with a 1.36 ERA and 0.88 WHIP in 33 innings. He also had 23 strikeouts, allowed just 17 hits and held opposing batters to a .149 average.
He stayed hot throughout July, going 3-0 with a 2.00 ERA and 1.51 WHIP over five starts, with 25 strikeouts in 27 innings.
Ray, who won the 2021 American League Cy Young Award with the Toronto Blue Jays, has faced some weak lineups over that stretch but has allowed just one home run in 49⅓ innings. There also is a big home/away split, with Ray posting a 2.22 ERA and a .193 batting average against at Oracle Park but a 4.06 ERA and .263 batting average against on the road.
Ray still walks too many batters -- his walk rate is 11.1%, which is third highest among qualified starters -- and his strikeout rate is dropping. He's also generally much more vulnerable to right-handed batters (14 of his 15 home runs have come against righties), but he has consistently provided dependable innings since returning from Tommy John surgery in 2024.
In 13 major league seasons since 2014, Ray has a 98-87 record with a 3.87 ERA and 1,841 strikeouts in 1,563⅔ innings with the Tigers, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Mariners and Giants.
Mize, meanwhile, is having a breakthrough season, but the 29-year-old right-hander continues to be interrupted by health issues and is scheduled to become a free agent after this season. He is 4-6 with a 2.70 ERA, 85 strikeouts and a 0.99 WHIP, ranking in the top 10 percent in walk percentage (5.6%), but has pitched only 86⅔ innings while twice being placed on the IL because of a strained groin.
His fastball velocity (93.5 mph) is the lowest of his big league career, but he has four above-average pitches (fastball, cutter, sweeper, splitter) that are all performing (via runs value) as at least average pitches. He has improved by limiting damage on his fastball/splitter this year, staying on the fringes of the zone and inducing whiffs on the cutter by tunneling with the fastball.
Despite a very low groundball rate, he has allowed just five home runs. Four of the five homers he has allowed have come on the road, but he has had all of his pitches working while allowing batters a .593 OPS in 2026. That's the 10th-lowest mark among pitchers with at least 80 innings -- three points better than former Tigers teammate Tarik Skubal.
In his first start after the break, Mize left after just 3⅓ innings after he was hit in the left wrist by a 109 mph comebacker off the bat of the Angels' Jo Adell. The team also said he was again dealing with groin tightness.
He last pitched July 25, giving up just one run in six innings, but was scratched as a precautionary measure before Friday's game against the Athletics.
In six major league seasons, all with the Tigers, Mize is 27-31 with a 3.95 ERA and 450 strikeouts in 526⅔ innings.
"We have a team that can compete and win," Preller said. "[The thinking was] if we can supplement, that would be great, but there's a lot of belief in this current team."
Meanwhile, the Giants are retooling late in another disappointing season.
Hernandez is a 17-year-old shortstop who was recently signed out of Cuba. Mendez is a 24-year-old right-hander with a 4.93 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 34⅔ innings in Double-A.
"We feel good about the moves we made back from a few weeks ago in the draft, and then now we feel like we've got some position players and pitchers that hopefully will have a bright future in San Francisco, but that still remains to be seen," Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey said. "It doesn't really matter until you do it out on the major league field."
Mayfield is a 21-year-old left-hander who is 6-4 at High-A Fort Wayne, while Wolf, 27, is 5-10 with a 7.05 ERA at Triple-A El Paso.
ESPN's Kiley McDaniel, Jeff Passan and David Schoenfield and The Associated Press contributed to this report.