PLAYOFF PREVIEW

And no word on who will start in Game 1 against L.A.’s Buehler

The Padres are awaiting confirmation on the health of their staff before choosing a Game 1 starter.

The identity of the Padres’ starting pitcher for the first game of the National League Division Series is likely going to be a mystery almost to the end. Again.

Just as they did before last week’s Wild Card Series, the Padres are awaiting confirmation on the health of right-handers Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet, who both left their most recent starts due to arm ailments.

“We owe them, we owe the medical staff (time),” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said Sunday. “I feel confident it’s going to be a last-minute decision on the roster. Trying to keep everything in play, not ruling anything out. … Each one is dayto-day. Feels like we’ll take a half-step forward, then another half-step forward, then we’ve been having a half-step back. We’ve got to stack some good days and see where we’re at.”

The rosters for this series are due by 8 a.m. PT Tuesday. Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers is scheduled to start at 6:38 PT that night.

There are no days off in this series, which could mean five games in five days. Regardless of the status of Clevinger and Lamet, the Padres will almost certainly carry more than the 14 pitchers they did for the Wild Card Series against the Cardinals. Among their primary options are Luis Perdomo, who allowed six runs in three innings (two games) against the Dodgers this season, and top prospect MacKenzie Gore, who would become the first pitcher in major league history to make his debut in the postseason.

There seems to be a smidge more optimism internally regarding the chances Clevinger pitches in this series than there is about Lamet. Clevinger, who is working back from a posterior elbow impingement, threw a bullpen session Sunday at Globe Life Field. He also threw in the bullpen Sept. 29 before being left off the Padres’ Wild Card Series roster the next day.

Lamet played catch Sunday, and a Padres official described the day as “positive” for both pitchers.

A part of that optimism regarding Lamet was that he saw elbow specialist Dr. Keith Meister on Sunday and was cleared

to continue throwing. While the Padres have only announced “biceps tightness,” there has been concern about his elbow, on which Meister performed Tommy John surgery in 2018.

Clevinger last pitched Sept. 23, when he departed after one perfect inning against the Angels. What was initially called bicep tightness was later diagnosed as an elbow impingement. Clevinger received a cortisone shot Sept. 25.

Lamet has not thrown a bullpen session since leaving his Sept. 25 start at San Francisco in the fourth inning with what the team has called bicep tightness while multiple sources have said there was concern about an elbow injury.

“Biceps, distal triceps, obviously when you get in that area you’re always concerned with the (elbow) ligament,” Padres General Manager A.J. Preller said last week. … “When you’re dealing with (the) arm area, there is some gray area.”

The Padres decided on Chris Paddack to start the first game against St. Louis. He allowed four runs in 21⁄

3 innings. The next night Zach Davies allowed four runs in two innings. After relievers

worked 132⁄ innings in those

3 two games, the Padres in Game 3 became the first team to ever throw a postseason shutout when using nine pitchers.

One thing the Padres say they won’t do is make Garrett Richards a starter again for this series.

“No,” Tingler said when asked if that was an option. “We’ve never discussed it. We’ve had him focused on the bullpen, and he’s been terrific.”

That doesn’t mean Richards couldn’t serve as an opener in a game. But he likely wouldn’t be expected to throw more than two or three innings.

Not anticipating their top two starters would go down with injuries, the Padres sent Richards to the bullpen in mid-September. He has made six appearances out of the bullpen, including two in the Wild Card Series. The longest of those was a two-inning, 24-pitch outing Sept. 26.

The Dodgers announced Sunday that Walker Buehler will start the opener with Clayton Kershaw going in Game 2. The Padres scored three runs (all on homers) against Buehler on Aug. 3. They scored three runs on five hits in 61⁄ innings

3 against Kershaw on Sept. 14.