The bad news for San Diego Padres catcher Luis Campusano is good news for third-string catcher Rodolfo Duran.

Duran was promoted from Triple-A El Paso on Thursday, when the Padres prepared to take on the St. Louis Cardinals in the opener of a four-game series. Campusano was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left toe fracture. Right-handed pitcher Joe Musgrove was transferred to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding roster move.

It isn’t the first time this season the Padres have summoned Duran from Triple-A El Paso.

The 28-year-old catcher joined the Padres on April 16 in advance of a game against the Seattle Mariners at Petco Park. At the time, catcher Freddy Fermin was undergoing concussion testing after he took a foul ball off his mask the night before.

Ultimately, Duran went back to the minor leagues without appearing in a game. Because he isn’t on the Padres’ 40-man roster, multiple roster moves were needed before he could be promoted.

Campusano was deemed day-to-day after taking a foul ball of his foot in Tuesday’s win over the San Francisco Giants. Now, he’ll miss at least the next 10 days amid a breakout season that’s seen him hit .288 with three home runs, 10 RBIs and an OPS of .958.

As for Duran, he signed a minor league contract with the Padres in January 2025 and has spent the past two seasons at Triple-A El Paso.

The catcher is a veteran of 615 minor league games since 2015, when he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies out of the Dominican Republic as a teenager. He’s a career .268/.335/.458 hitter in Triple-A, but has so far been buried on the depth chart of four different big league organizations.

Prior to signing with the Padres, Duran played for the Kansas City Royals organization in 2024. He split his time between Triple-A Omaha and Double-A Northwest Arkansas, slashing .282/.323/.467 across the two levels.

In 2023, Duran spent the entire season with the New York Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate — his first full season at the highest level of the minor leagues. Duran slashed .252/.329/.444 for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders that season.

From 2015-21, Duran climbed the Phillies’ organizational ladder slowly, topping out with four games at Triple-A in his final season. He has also appeared in 90 Dominican Winter League games from 2020-26, slashing .242/.283/.377 in his homeland’s top circuit.

At 5-foot-8, Duran becomes the shortest position player on the Padres’ active roster.

Padres Place Joe Musgrove on 60-Day IL

As for Musgrove, he’s ramping back up from 2024 Tommy John surgery. He suffered a setback this spring that has him sidelined for seemingly the foreseeable future.

While this move was strictly procedural, the latest updates on Musgrove don’t provide much confidence toward him returning any time soon.

Sign up for our free newsletter and follow us on Facebook and X/Twitter for the latest news

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Arts leaders packed City Hall Wednesday, urging city leaders to reconsider proposed cuts that would eliminate nearly $11.8 million in arts and culture funding from San Diego’s budget.

Representatives from some of San Diego’s most well-known cultural institutions, including the Mingei International Museum, the La Jolla Playhouse, and the Fleet Science Center, voiced their concerns at a budget review committee meeting.

Debby Buchholz, managing director of the La Jolla Playhouse, said: “The idea that America’s finest city would spend no money on arts and culture is reprehensible, frankly.”

Advocates argued the cut represents a fraction of the city’s overall spending.

“$11.5 million dollars in a $6.5 billion budget is not even a drop; it’s less than a quarter of 1% of the total budget,” Buchholz added.

Arts advocates warned the impact would be immediate, with potential layoffs, program cuts, and even closures.

Jessica Hanson York, executive director of the Mingei International Museum, said, “We are huge employers of people who are making a living as creatives in this community and we want our artists and creative contributors to be able to stay here, and it doesn’t help when we don’t have the support to keep them employed.”

During the meeting, Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee questioned the mayor’s office about whether an economic impact analysis had been completed.

Kent Lee asked “Was an economic impact analysis completed in regards to arts and culture?”

The mayor’s office responded that no such analysis had been conducted.

Lee also pressed the mayor’s office on whether and when arts and culture funding might be restored.

The mayor’s office responded saying, “That’s a difficult question to answer I think there is a lot of desire to bring these funds back we are going to work hard to bring these funds back we recognize the impacts. I don’t have a specific plan for you today.”

Arts advocates say they want to see no cuts made to their funding. The full City Council will have the final say on the budget in the coming weeks.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

SAN FRANCISCO — This is who the Padres are.

They are eventually. They are find a way.

They are virtually nothing — and then they are what is necessary.

“When it’s time to go, we’re ready to go,” Gavin Sheets said Wednesday afternoon after another typically untypical victory. “And we’ve got guys to do it, and we’ve got guys that are ready in any moment.”

Ty France was the one who encapsulated that ethic in a 5-1 victory over the Giants at Oracle Park.

Sent to the plate as a pinch-hitter with two outs in the seventh inning with one strike against him, France worked the count full and then lofted the seventh pitch he saw down the right field line.

As the ball fell, right fielder Jesus Rodriguez dove to try to make what would have been an inning-ending catch, but the ball bounced off his glove and rolled into the corner.

“I knew I didn’t hit it great, so I was hoping that it was going to get down,” France said. “He made a great effort, and fortunately for me, it kicked away.”

Yes, that is how it has gone for the Padres.

As the ball bounced off the side wall and died in the dirt, two Padres baserunners raced home and France ran all the way to third base.

Some deliberation in the dugout regarding personnel had resulted in France getting late word he would be hitting and his being assessed a strike for a pitch clock violation not of his own doing.

“Great at-bat by Ty,” manager Craig Stammen said. “I don’t know if the manager put him in the greatest position to succeed, but we got him out there and he came through and made me look good.”

That France went up and delivered one of the more clutch at-bats of the season was entirely on brand for the Padres of 2026.

His hit was the third by a Padres substitute that gave them a lead in the final three innings of a game. It provided the edge for the Padres in their 11th victory (of their 22 total) earned in the seventh inning or later. It required some good fortune, and it masked the fact that they had three hits to that point and had the 17th quality start thrown against them in 36 games.

What they don’t do just doesn’t seem to matter. It has so far been outweighed in great measure by what they do.

“We’re a resilient group,” France said. “It’s going to be someone different every day. We’ve got to keep putting good at-bats together. When we do put those big innings together, it’s because we’ve had, one after the other, just consistent, good at-bats.”

So it is that a riddle of a season continued, as the Padres won for the third time in four games. This comes after they lost five times in six games, which came after a 16-3 stretch, which followed a 2-5 start.

Xander Bogaerts, who entered the game at shortstop after France pinch-hit for Sung-Mun Song, hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning.

In all, 69 of the Padres’ 162 runs have been scored after the sixth inning. That is the second most in the major leagues.

They are batting .283 after the sixth inning in games in which they are leading by a run, tied or at least have the tying run on deck. That compares to a .227 batting average in all other situations.

Their formula for Wednesday did vary on the pitching side.

The Padres began the game with an opener for the first time this season, and it worked magnificently.

Bradgley Rodriguez retired the Giants in order in the first inning. Matt Waldron took over and allowed one run on two hits while striking out seven batters in his five innings.

Adrian Morejón began the seventh and allowed one hit over the next two innings before Mason Miller worked a 1-2-3 ninth.

A solo home run for each side — Gavin Sheets into the bay in the fourth inning; Rafael Devers the other way and just over the wall in left field in the fifth — had the game tied 1-1 when France came to bat.

Giants’ starting pitcher Adrian Houser had allowed three hits and walked one while throwing just 73 pitches through six innings.

He appeared to get the first out of the seventh when Fernando Tatis Jr. grounded a ball toward third base, but Matt Chapman had the ball go off his glove and into left field.

With that, Giants manager Tony Vitello went to reliever Keaton Winn, who began his day by walking Ramón Laureano before retiring Nick Castellanos and Freddy Fermin.

With the left-handed-hitting Song due up, Vitello made another change, bringing in left-hander Matt Gage.

The Padres, meanwhile, were trying to figure out how to handle their substitutions, given that France was serving as the backup catcher with Luis Campusano unavailable after fouling a ball off his toe Tuesday, shortstop Xander Bogaerts was getting a day off and various other players not working at their usual positions.

When Gage completed his warm-up pitches quicker than Stammen anticipated, Song walked to the plate and got in the box before France emerged from the dugout.

Home plate umpire Tripp Gibson assessed the Padres a pitch clock violation, and France faced an 0-1 count.

After fouling off successive 2-2 pitches, he watched a ball in the dirt and then went the other way with a fastball left up and in.

“Luckily, Ty is such a pro,” Stammen said, “he went out there and did his job and it worked out for us.”

It has not always. But it has an inordinate amount of the time.

Because that is who the Padres are.