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San Diego Padres right-handed pitcher Yu Darvish began the season on the injured list with elbow inflammation, but threw another bullpen at Petco Park Monday.
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Darvish returned to San Diego over the weekend, and the current plan is for the right-hander to make a rehab start Wednesday with Triple-A El Paso in Las Vegas.
Prior to Darvish dealing with an injury this spring, the Padres were already considering limiting the veteran's workload in 2025. The soon-to-be 39-year-old went 7-3 with a 3.31 ERA, 78 strikeouts and a 1.065 WHIP across 81.2 innings pitched last season.
There's no telling how long Darvish will extend his career, but the Padres hope to preserve the right-hander as long as possible.
"We're gonna watch, we're gonna pay attention, we're gonna listen to him, we're gonna watch the metrics," Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla said, via Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune. "But Yu is the one guy that you can trust on this more than anybody else. He's so aware.
"Yu also has a lot of low-effort, less-stress innings (compared to) other pitchers. .... He doesn't exert a lot of energy through his outings. So it's not max effort. He conserves energy through the course of a game."
The priority remains for Darvish to take the mound in October, which won't happen if San Diego overworks the right-hander upon his return. In two outings during the National League Division Series last year, Darvish allowed just one run in seven innings during Game 2, and two runs across 6.2 frames in Game 5.
President of baseball operations A.J. Preller stressed the idea of limiting Darvish in the summer in order to guarantee his availability in the postseason.
"At times for Yu-san, less is more," Preller said in the offseason. "And I think for us in terms of understanding, hey, the most important thing is what we saw last year when he was pitching in October. Yu Darvish in October is obviously a very talented and capable pitcher — seeing what he did in L.A. in two starts.
"So I think for us, it's like understanding that, like, yeah, the World Series isn't played in April or May. These games are important. But we're gonna try and do everything we can ... to make sure he is as prepared as he can to go perform at a high level."
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About the writer
Valentina Martinez is a Newsweek contributor based in Los Angeles. Her focus is reporting on sports, with an expertise in ... Read more