The San Diego Padres’ surge before the trade deadline was enough to persuade general manager A.J. Preller to take yet another couple of huge swings at a postseason push.
The Padres acquired left-hander Robbie Ray from the San Francisco Giants and right-hander Casey Mize from the Detroit Tigers on Monday, giving up three of their highest-rated prospects in deadline trades for two proven starting pitchers.
“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 sent right-hander Miguel Mendez and 17-year-old shortstop Joniel Hernandez to San Francisco, which will pay part of Ray’s $25 million salary.
The Padres also got infielder Gage Workman from Detroit while giving up left-handers Kash Mayfield and Jackson Wolf.
Ray and Mize can become free agents this winter, so they could wind up being only late-season rentals for San Diego. But after stumbling into the All-Star break at .500 following a 15-28 skid, the Padres (58-54) have won eight of nine to move one game back of the final NL wild-card playoff position despite a patchwork rotation with an ugly 4.66 ERA.
That prompted their ever-aggressive GM to go into buyer mode again, shipping out yet another chunk of his severely depleted farm system to fill his obvious need for quality starters.
“We’re definitely excited to have them,” infielder Xander Bogaerts said in the Padres’ clubhouse in Arizona before they 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.”
Ray and Mize should slot in immediately for the Padres, who could also get back injured starters Nick Pivetta, Joe Musgrove and Lucas Giolito within the next month.
“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.”
Ray is 10-6 with a 3.08 ERA and 107 strikeouts in 122 2/3 innings this season, his third with San Francisco. He has been largely outstanding over the past two months, posting a 1.65 ERA since May while allowing one earned run or fewer in nine of his past 11 starts.
Ray is the only starting pitcher to beat the Padres in the past 10 days, throwing six innings of four-hit ball at Petco Park in the Giants' 4-1 win last Thursday. Ray won the AL Cy Young Award with Toronto in 2021 and had Tommy John surgery in early 2023 while with Seattle, but has returned to be a dependable starter for the Giants, who are retooling late in another disappointing season.
“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.”
Posey wanted Giants fans to know the club isn’t satisfied with the results of recent years. San Francisco has made one playoff appearance since 2016.
“I guess you can characterize it how you want, (but) I wouldn’t necessarily say a rebuild,” Posey said. “Obviously we moved six major league players off of our roster today. I guess the message is we’re not satisfied with the way we’ve played this year and the last few years, and we’re trying everything we can to continue to build a product that we can all be excited to come and watch.”
Mize, the No. 1 overall draft pick by Detroit in 2018, is 4-6 with a 2.70 ERA and an 0.99 WHIP in 16 starts for the Tigers this season despite managing a groin injury. He also overcame Tommy John surgery and became an All-Star last season before starting two playoff games last fall.
The Padres' recent success has been driven by an offense that has awoken from its first-half slumber, making up for a starting rotation that was perilously thin due to injuries.
San Diego's only regular starting pitchers are Michael King and Walker Buehler, forcing the team to throw three bullpen games per rotation turn with Griffin Canning, Randy Vásquez and Germán Márquez anchoring the outings.
Dominant closer Mason Miller and elite left-hander Adrian Morejon were the subject of innumerable trade rumors this summer while the Padres struggled last month.
Instead, Preller kept his star relievers — and more help is on the way, with Pivetta, Giolito and Musgrove all taking steps toward their returns this month.
Preller made it clear he got no offers he couldn't refuse for Miller, a player he had coveted for years before acquiring him just 12 months ago from the Athletics for a package highlighted by blue-chip prospect Leo De Vries.
“We’ve let it be known, with any one of our players, it’s a very clear bar,” Preller said. “We’re going to listen at all times to any conversation that a team wants to bring up, (but) ultimately it was a high bar for all of our players.”
AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley in San Francisco and AP freelance reporter Jack Thompson in Phoenix contributed to this report.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Robbie Ray works against a San Diego Padres batter during the first inning of a baseball game Thursday, July 30, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Some residents returned to devastated neighborhoods in eastern Washington state to find their homes leveled by wildfires that erupted across a parched landscape over the weekend, covering yards in charred debris. In some cases, only chimneys were left standing.
The fires in and around Spokane, the state’s second-largest city, were among the most destructive in state history. About 700 buildings had been destroyed — a number that was expected to climb — and some 67,000 people were under evacuation orders. The cause was under investigation.
“There’s nothing to save,” Miriam Sim, 76, said Monday as she and her husband, Daniel Sim, surveyed the ruins of the home where they had lived since 2005.
“At our age, do we want to rebuild?” her husband asked.
The fires jumped roads and rivers and had burned about 12.5 square miles (about 32 square kilometers) by Monday. The sky filled with smoke and haze. Calmer winds and lower temperatures arrived to help firefighters, but it was expected to be hot and dry again by midweek.
In one Spokane neighborhood, blackened vehicles, a boat twisted by the heat and melted plastic recycling bins remained. Across the street, lawns were still green and houses were spared, as residents continued to run hoses or sprinklers to water their properties.
“Hundreds of people have completely lost their homes and farms, and many are prohibited from returning to their homes or neighborhoods as crews continue to extinguish smoldering embers,” the state's entire congressional delegation wrote Monday in asking President Donald Trump to approve an expedited emergency declaration.
Cpl. Mark Gregory, a spokesperson for the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, said the county initially received nearly 300 reports of missing people, but by Monday they had cleared all but 14.
Those outstanding reports more likely represented people who had not been in contact since evacuating than people who were truly missing or in danger, authorities said.
The Spokane-area wildfires were completely uncontained, fire officials said. More than 1,000 firefighters, many from out of state, had arrived by Monday, and that number was expected to double in the next few days.
The fires were among dozens across the Western U.S. stretching the ability of federal, state and local agencies to fight them. At least 390 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) has burned across Washington, which has contended with severe drought and a paltry snowpack.
Authorities warned people not to fly drones near the burned areas, saying it could force them to delay aerial firefighting operations.
Angela and Wayde Deatherage, both 49, evacuated shortly after 3 p.m. Saturday with a son, grabbing a few bins of family photos and heirloom rings but not much else. Roughly 30 minutes later, their security camera was sending fire notifications to Angela’s phone.
Wayde Deatherage took some back roads and returned by early evening. He stopped at the end of the street and called his wife: “Our house is done.”
Deatherage, however, wasn't done with his neighborhood. He propped a hose at another house so it sprayed the property. That home survived.
The couple returned to their property Sunday.
“It’s just ash,” Angela Deatherage said of the home where they had lived for nearly 22 years. ”It’s like our house sunk down in the basement. ... There’s just so much loss for so many people.”
Karen Faggioli, 61, figured she would be returning to her home. She recalled how other recent fires had been brought under control. But a relative texted her the bad news: Her house and three vehicles were destroyed. A daughter lost her nearby house, too.
“Why cry? What’s crying going to do? I’ve been through so many tragedies myself,” said Faggioli, who is recovering from breast cancer. “This is nothing. Like I told my granddaughter, ‘We’re strong — and now we get all new things.’ I’m emotionally numb.”
Friends and relatives of fire victims posted online appeals for money, clothes and basic necessities.
Spokane was hardly the only place struggling to contain fires.
A lightning-caused fire that has burned over 530 square miles (about 1,370 square kilometers) of grassland in western Idaho and eastern Oregon continued to grow Monday. The area is home to cattle ranches, and authorities said the fire is threatening more than 600 homes and 800 other structures.
In central Utah, a blaze quadrupled in size over the weekend to nearly 109 square miles (282 square kilometers) by Monday afternoon. More than 100 cattle have been killed, according to law enforcement.
Heavy winds helped flames jump containment lines, but forward progression was slowed toward Fillmore, a town of about 2,600 people and the seat of Millard County, officials said. Mandatory evacuations were ordered Sunday evening for the town's southern portion, and inmates at the county jail were transferred.
In Spokane, about 400 people were staying at city's main convention center, which was turned into a shelter, officials said.
Spokane Public Schools opened a free emergency drop-in camp for children on Monday. Trials at the county court were pushed to Aug. 10.
Several larger fires continued to burn in less populated areas northwest of Spokane.
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Johnson reported from Seattle, and White from Detroit. Associated Press writers Manuel Valdes in Spokane; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H.; and Martha Bellisle in Seattle contributed.
A worker with Avista moves through a property after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Miriam Sim, 76, reacts as she walks through the burned remains of her neighborhood after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Daniel Sim, 76, views the remains of his destroyed house after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Miriam Sim, 76, reacts while talking about her neighborhood largely burning to the ground after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Trees burned by a wildfire stand near destroyed structures in the Indian trail neighborhood, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
Structures along W. Tiffany Ave. are burned to the ground after a wildfire, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
A vehicle and structure are burned on N. Skyline Dr. due to a wildfire, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
Kimberley Sather stands at the duplex she rents on W. Indian Trail Rd. after it burned in a wildfire in Spokane, Wash., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
People watch Old Trails Fire from W. Northwest Blvd., Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
Allen Sather and his wife Kimberley embrace at the duplex they rent on W. Indian Trail Rd. after it burned in a wildfire in Spokane, Wash., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
