Yu Darvish To Begin Season On Injured List
Right-hander Yu Darvish will begin the season on the injured list. Manager Mike Shildt informed reporters today, including Dennis Lin of The Athletic and AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. The righty was diagnosed with elbow inflammation earlier this week. “We feel pretty comfortable that some rest and getting ramped back up will be the answer,” Shildt says. That doesn’t point to a long absence but it will leave two rotation spots for the trio of Kyle Hart, Stephen Kolek and Randy Vásquez.
Darvish has been dealing with occasional bouts of elbow inflammation for a while now. He finished the 2023 season on the IL due to inflammation in that right elbow. In 2024, he missed time due to various issues. He had some neck tightness, a groin strain, an undisclosed family issue and some more elbow inflammation. He was limited to 81 2/3 innings last year.
Though Shildt downplayed the severity, it’s a somewhat concerning situation. Any injury to a pitcher’s throwing elbow is somewhat alarming. In the case of Darvish, the elbow problems are becoming somewhat frequent and he’s going to turn 39 years old in August.
The San Diego rotation has been an ongoing point of focus. Joe Musgrove required Tommy John surgery in October, blowing a big hole in the 2025 staff. That left them with a front three of Darvish, Dylan Cease and Michael King. They signed Nick Pivetta in the offseason to take a fourth spot.
That left guys like Matt Waldron, Hart, Kolek and Vásquez as contenders for the final rotation spot. But Waldron is on the shelf due to an oblique strain and now Darvish is out. That appears to leave two rotation spots for the Hart/Kolek/Vásquez trio.
Hart has almost no major league experience but dominated in Korea last year. He tossed 157 innings in the KBO with a 2.69 earned run average, 28.8% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate and 46% ground ball rate. That led to a deal with the Padres but he was slowed in camp by the flu. He only made his spring debut on Sunday, tossing three innings.
Kolek just made his big league debut last year, as a Rule 5 pick out of the Mariners organization. He stuck in the San Diego bullpen all year and posted a 5.21 ERA, though with better peripherals. His .359 batting average on balls in play and 64.3% strand rate were both on the unlucky side, so he had a 3.57 FIP and and 3.41 SIERA. He has been getting stretched out in camp and has a 2.19 ERA in 12 1/3 innings.
Vásquez had a 4.87 ERA over 20 starts for the Friars last year. He has only thrown four innings of official Cactus League action, having allowed two earned runs with three strikeouts and one walk. His last official outing was March 2 but he has been throwing on backfields and in sim games.
Yu Darvish Questionable For Opening Day Due To Elbow Inflammation
Padres right-hander Yu Darvish has recently been slowed in camp. While it was initially conveyed that he had some general fatigue, manager Mike Shildt today provided a more specific and more ominous diagnosis. The skipper told members of the media, including Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, that the veteran righty experienced elbow inflammation after his last start.
Shildt stopped short of saying Darvish would start the season on the injured list, describing him as day-to-day. Opening Day is just over a week away, so it’s a tight window. Any time a pitcher’s throwing elbow is involved, it’s a cause for some concern. In the case of Darvish, there may be even more concern than with some other hurlers.
Darvish has dealt with some elbow problems in the past. Tommy John surgery wiped out his entire 2015 season. He was largely health for years after that, though he hasn’t logged a huge workload in the past two seasons. He was capped at 24 starts and 136 1/3 innings in 2023. He landed on the IL in late August due to right elbow inflammation and stayed there to finish the year. In 2024, he only made 16 starts and tossed 81 2/3 innings. He missed time due to neck tightness, a groin strain, some more inflammation in that throwing elbow and an undisclosed personal issue.
That makes this the third straight season that Darvish has battled some elbow inflammation. For a pitcher who is now 38 years old, that’s less than ideal. It’s especially worrisome since rotation depth is one of the key issues on the San Diego roster. The Friars already lost Joe Musgrove for the entire season, as he required Tommy John surgery in October.
Losing Musgrove left the Padres with a rotation core of Darvish, Michael King and Dylan Cease. They signed Nick Pivetta to fill one of the back-end spots. Coming into camp, candidates for the final spot including Matt Waldron, Kyle Hart, Randy Vásquez and Stephen Kolek. However, Waldron is out of commission due to an oblique strain. Hart has also been delayed by the flu and is behind the rest of the group in terms of building up. If Darvish needs to miss some time at the start of the season, that would seemingly leave two spots open behind the King/Cease/Pivetta trio.
If it’s just a short-term absence, the overall group could look stronger in a few weeks, with both Waldron and Darvish perhaps back in the mix. A more serious issue would naturally have bigger impacts. Both Cease and King are impending free agents. That means Pivetta and Darvish are the on-paper rotation nucleus for 2026. Musgrove could be back in the mix by then but may have some workload issues after missing all of 2025. Darvish is still under contract through 2028, as part of the extension he signed with the club in 2023.
It’s also possible this could impact the trade market. San Diego has notable budgetary concerns and various parts of the roster they would like to upgrade. That has led to rumors about Cease or King being available, though Cease’s name has come up far more often. It would be a tricky balance for San Diego to strike, as they would have to feel that reducing their rotation depth is worth it for multiple upgrades at left field, first base or designated hitter.
Presumably, Darvish being hurt would reduce the chances of a Cease deal in the short term, as it would be even harder to justify a rotation subtraction. Closer to the deadline, that calculus could change if the Padres don’t manage to compete. As mentioned, both Cease and King are impending free agents and would be natural trade candidates this summer if San Diego slips behind the other National League contenders.
Photo courtesy Mark J. Rebilas of Imagn Images
West Notes: Tucker, Darvish, Doval
The Astros have surged ahead of the free-falling Mariners to take control of the AL West after a rough start to the season, and they’ve largely done that without one of their best hitters. Outfielder Kyle Tucker was nothing short of incredible early in the season with a .266/.395/.584 slash line in 60 games that helped to keep Houston afloat in the midst of their early-season struggles, but hasn’t appeared in a game since June 3 after suffering a shin contusion that’s kept him out of action ever since.
Now, it appears the 27-year-old may finally be nearing a return to action after an initial target of a return early in the second half quickly turned into doubt over whether or not he’d contribute in the majors before September. In his latest update regarding the situation, GM Dana Brown suggested that he thinks Tucker will be able to return to the big league lineup during the first week of September. While a specific timeline for Tucker’s return is surely encouraging for Astros fans, The Athletic’s Chandler Rome cautions that Tucker has not yet begun running the bases or sprinting at full speed yet, and that he won’t be able to begin a rehab assignment until those boxes have been checked.
With that being said, Brown seemed to suggest yesterday (as relayed by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker) that the club could start pushing Tucker more aggressively in the near future, noting that the outfielder is currently “push[ing] a little harder” to “see where it goes.” Whenever he’s ready to return, Tucker is sure to provide a spark to an Astros lineup that will be looking to create more space between themselves and the Mariners, who currently sit 4.5 games back of them in the AL West race.
More from around MLB’s West divisions…
- Moving over to the NL, the Padres reinstated veteran right-hander Yu Darvish from the restricted list yesterday. Darvish is not yet back on the big league roster, however, as he was placed back on the 15-day injured list. The 38-year-old hurler had been shelved due to hamstring and elbow issues prior to his placement on the restricted list due to an undisclosed family matter in early July. Fortunately, manager Mike Shildt clarified to reporters (including Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union Tribune) earlier today that Darvish is no longer dealing with any physical issues and that his placement on the injured list is instead a mechanism to allow him time to build up toward returning to the club’s rotation. Darvish last threw an official pitch during a minor league rehab assignment back in June and last pitched in the majors on May 29, so it’s hardly a surprise that he’ll need time to build his stamina back up before he can return to the rotation. The veteran was pitching quite well prior to his lengthy layoff, with a 3.20 ERA and 3.52 FIP in 11 starts, and figures to be a major asset for the Padres down the stretch and into the postseason once he’s built up enough stamina to return. The righty will face live hitters tomorrow before the club determines his next steps.
- The Giants optioned longtime closer Camilo Doval to Triple-A earlier this month amid struggles that saw the 27-year-old’s ERA balloon up to 4.70 after sitting at an excellent 2.78 at the end of May and a decent 3.93 as recently as mid-July. With a 6.75 ERA from the month of June onward and a disastrous run of eight appearances prior to his option where he posted an 8.59 ERA and walked 16.7% of opponents, San Francisco sent their star reliever to reset in the minor leagues. As first reported by Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic this morning, however, Doval is now back in the majors after impressing in five appearances at the Triple-A level. The right-hander threw 1 1/3 scoreless innings against the Mariners tonight, during which he struck out two on one hit and no walks. Despite his return to action, however, Doval will not be returning to the closer’s role, as Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle was among those to note that manager Bob Melvin is planning to keep Ryan Walker as the club’s primary ninth-inning option going forward.
Padres Reinstate Yu Darvish From Restricted List
The Padres announced that right-hander Yu Darvish has been reinstated from the restricted list and will join the club tonight, though he has been returned to the 15-day injured list. Infielder Matthew Batten was designated for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot for him.
Darvish, 38, began his season strong. He made 11 starts through the end of May, allowing 3.20 earned runs per nine innings, but his campaign has been on pause since then. He landed on the 15-day injured list June 1, retroactive to May 31, due to a left groin strain. He was supposed to return on June 25 but then was sidelined by some inflammation in his throwing elbow.
On July 6, he was transferred to the restricted list due to an undisclosed family matter, with no details about that situation having been made public. Last week, it was reported that Darvish set up a live BP session at a high school, trying to keep himself somewhat ready even while he was away from the club and perhaps demonstrating that he had put his injuries behind him. Whatever the family situation was, it now seems it has been resolved enough for the veteran to turn his attentions back to baseball.
However, he may not immediately join the big league club, as he is still on the injured list. After so much down time, he will likely need some kind of rehab assignment to build back up. Still, the fact that he is back from the restricted list at least provides some clarity and some expectations to a situation that was previously difficult to predict.
The Padres just optioned struggling knuckleballer Matt Waldron, leaving them with a rotation consisting of Joe Musgrove, Dylan Cease, Michael King and Martín Pérez. Whenever Darvish is in game shape, he will jump back into that mix. Until then, the club may need to call upon Randy Vásquez or Jhony Brito to cover Waldron’s spot, or perhaps deploy a bullpen game or two.
Batten, 29, was added to the club’s roster in June of 2022. He has largely been on optional assignment in the two-plus years since then, having appeared in 59 big league games with 164 plate appearances. He has hit .239/.337/.345 in those for a wRC+ of 96. His minor league work has actually been worse, as he has hit .242/.333/.372 at Triple-A El Paso since the start of 2023. In the context of the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, that translates to a wRC+ of 75.
He is in his final option year and will be out of options by next season. With the trade deadline having passed, the Friars will have to place him on waivers in the coming days. Despite the lack of offense, some club may be attracted to his other attributes. He has racked up double-digit steal totals in each minor league season since 2021 and has played every position on the diamond except catcher, including some mop-up duty on the mound. He has less than a year of service time and therefore could potentially be retained for six seasons beyond this one.
Padres Reinstate Joe Musgrove, Designate Carl Edwards
As expected, the Padres reinstated Joe Musgrove from the 60-day injured list to start tonight’s game against the Pirates. San Diego designated reliever Carl Edwards Jr. for assignment to open space on both the active and 40-man rosters.
Musgrove has been sidelined since the end of May on account of elbow inflammation. This was his second elbow-related IL stint of the season. He hasn’t looked like himself around the injuries, struggling to a 5.66 ERA over 10 starts. His 92.4 MPH fastball speed was a bit below last season’s 93.1 MPH average. Opponents teed off on both his four-seam and cutter. Musgrove allowed nearly two home runs per nine innings and saw his strikeout rate fall to 20.6% — his lowest clip in six seasons.
After a few months away, Musgrove will try to recapture his 2021-23 form. The San Diego-area native combined for a 3.05 ERA across 459 2/3 innings over his first three seasons with his hometown club. While Musgrove’s 2023 campaign was cut short by a shoulder issue, he looked like a #2 or high-end #3 starter over the preceding two and a half seasons. He steps back into the Friars rotation as they look to at least hang onto a Wild Card spot. They currently occupy the second NL Wild Card spot and are four games clear of the #6 seed Braves. San Diego is tied with the Diamondbacks for second place in the NL West. They’re 3.5 games behind the Dodgers in the division.
Musgrove’s return nudges Randy Vásquez out of the rotation. San Diego already optioned Vásquez last week with the knowledge that their All-Star righty would get the ball tonight. Musgrove slots behind Dylan Cease and Michael King and in front of Matt Waldron and Martín Pérez in the starting five. The Padres have been without Yu Darvish for five weeks as he attends to a family matter. Dennis Lin of the Athletic reported this afternoon that Darvish set up a live batting practice session at a local high school over the weekend. It’s still not clear whether he’ll be able to return this season, but the veteran righty is keeping his arm in shape in case he can get back.
Edwards was just selected onto the MLB roster late last week. He pitched once and failed to retire any of three batters faced. The 32-year-old righty has otherwise spent this season in Triple-A. Splitting his time between the Cubs and Padres organizations, he owns a 3.30 ERA across 46 1/3 frames in the minors. His 22.2% strikeout rate and lofty 14.3% walk percentage aren’t great, though, so he hasn’t gotten much of an MLB opportunity this year.
San Diego will put Edwards on waivers in the next couple days. He has more than enough service time to decline a minor league assignment if he goes unclaimed, though he’d likely be limited to minor league offers if he elects free agency.
Padres Place Yu Darvish On Restricted List
The Padres have placed right-hander Yu Darvish on the restricted list, as manager Mike Shildt told reporters (including Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union Tribune) this evening. Shildt noted that Darvish is stepping away from the team while he deals with “a personal matter involving his family.” The issue does not have to do with anything physical, and Shildt did not comment on the veteran’s timeline for return to the club.
Players on the restricted list do not count against their club’s 40-man roster and collect neither their salary nor MLB service time, meaning that Darvish will forfeit a pro-rated amount of his $16MM salary for the 2024 season for the length of his absence from the team. The right-hander last appeared in a game for the Padres on May 29 and was placed on the injured list due to a left groin strain shortly thereafter. Reporting in late June indicated that the veteran was nearing a return from the injured list but had been slowed by a bout of inflammation in his right elbow. According to MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, Darvish had subsequently resumed playing catch as he worked his way back toward the big league mound but will now seemingly step away from the team for an indefinite period.
Darvish, 38 in August, is a five-time All Star and veteran of 12 MLB seasons. The righty joined the Padres during the 2020-21 offseason after the club acquired him from the Cubs alongside catcher Victor Caratini in exchange for right-hander Zach Davies and a package of four prospects. At the time, Darvish was coming off a dominant 2020 campaign that earned him a second-place finish in NL Cy Young award voting that year. While the righty’s work in San Diego hasn’t quite measured up to the incredible 2.01 ERA (224 ERA+) and 2.23 FIP he posted in 76 innings during the 60-game season, he’s nonetheless been a reliable presence at the front of the Padres rotation.
In 95 starts for the club, Darvish has posted a solid 3.80 ERA with an even stronger 3.69 FIP and an impressive 26.2% strikeout rate. That work impressed Padres brass enough that they opted to extend Darvish with a five-year, $90MM contract that began this season and will run through the 2028 campaign. The surprising commitment was looking good through 11 starts this year, as Darvish had dominated to the tune of a 3.20 ERA (126 ERA+) and a 3.51 FIP in 56 1/3 innings before he was placed on the IL at the start of June.
The news is a blow to the Padres’ rotation depth, as the club has relied in recent weeks on the likes of Randy Vasquez, Matt Waldron, and Adam Mazur to round out the club’s rotation behind Dylan Cease and Michael King amid injuries to Darvish and fellow veteran righty Joe Musgrove. With Musgrove expected to remain out until at least August due to a bone spur in his elbow that’s caused inflammation and now Darvish out indefinitely, the news serves to highlight San Diego’s rotation needs ahead of the trade deadline later this month.
The club’s 49-43 record puts them comfortably in the second of three NL Wild Card spots, and their offense ranks fourth in the majors with a wRC+ of 114. Unfortunately, they’ve been held back by a relatively lackluster rotation that ranks just 19th in the majors with a 4.09 ERA this year. Given the uncertainty surrounding when Musgrove and Darvish will be back in the rotation for the club, it makes plenty of sense for them to explore a rotation market that figures to feature players such as Garrett Crochet, Jack Flaherty, and Cal Quantrill.
Padres Place Fernando Tatis Jr. On Injured List
Monday marked a busy day on the transaction front for the Padres. San Diego placed star right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 22, with a right femoral stress reaction. The Friars also optioned outfielder José Azocar and right-hander Jhony Brito to Triple-A El Paso. Filling the three spots on the active roster: outfielder Bryce Johnson, infielder Eguy Rosario and right-hander Adam Mazur. Johnson was not on the 40-man roster, but the Friars have had a vacancy for weeks.
The Tatis injury is the biggest development. Manager Mike Shildt indicated that Tatis could play through the issue but that it wouldn’t fully heal without rest (X link via Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune). The team isn’t providing a specific return timetable, though they expect it to be longer than the minimal 10 days. It’s not out of the question that Tatis is sidelined through the All-Star Break.
Any absence is a major blow to the San Diego lineup. Tatis has been one of the top outfielders in the National League this year. He’s hitting .279/.354/.468 with 14 home runs across 345 plate appearances. Tatis has trimmed his strikeout rate to a career-low 20.6% clip while making hard contact on a massive 53.4% of batted balls. There’s no easy way to replace that kind of production.
It seems the Pads could roll with a David Peralta/Johnson platoon in right field for the time being. The lefty-swinging Peralta is only hitting .204/.306/.241 over 25 games since being called up last month. Johnson, a switch-hitter, has yet to play in the majors this season. San Diego signed the 28-year-old to a minor league deal in January. The former Giant has reached base at a massive .430 clip over 259 plate appearances with El Paso. Johnson is hitting .301 while drawing walks more than 15% of the time. He has also swiped 18 bases in 20 attempts. Johnson is in the lineup against Patrick Corbin this evening.
Mazur returns to the big leagues just three days after being optioned. (He didn’t need to wait the minimal 15 days because he is technically being recalled to replace the injured Tatis.) In actuality, he’s more directly a replacement for Yu Darvish. San Diego anticipated the right-hander returning from the injured list tomorrow. However, Heilbrunn tweets that Darvish is battling some inflammation in his throwing elbow. While Shildt downplayed the long-term concern, he won’t be ready for MLB action tomorrow.
Darvish has been out since May 30 with a strained left groin. The late revelation of a new elbow concern is suboptimal, though it doesn’t seem the Padres are especially alarmed at this point. The injury will force San Diego to turn back to the 23-year-old Mazur for his fifth big league start. The former second-round pick has allowed 14 runs over his first 17 1/3 innings. Mazur has walked more than 19% of batters faced, a bizarre issue for a pitcher who has shown pristine control in his minor league career.
Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune observed (on X) that Johnson was in the clubhouse prior to the team announcement.
Injury Notes: Luplow, Brown, Darvish
Outfielder Jordan Luplow, who signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in March, is done for the year with a right knee ACL tear. The account @Kram207 was among those to relay the info on X.
Luplow has mostly been a small-side platoon guy in his career, as the right-handed hitter has a line of .227/.338/.495 against lefties over several seasons. This year, he had stepped to the plate 254 times at the Triple-A level with a line of .255/.343/.450. His splits were closer to even with the IronPigs, though in a small sample of 184 plate appearances against righties and 70 against lefties.
Perhaps there would have been a path to playing time in the Philadelphia outfield. Johan Rojas struggled enough to get optioned down to the minors. Brandon Marsh and David Dahl are lefties with notable platoon splits. The right-handed counterparts in their platoons are Whit Merrifield and Cristian Pache, who are both struggling.
With this season-ending injury for Luplow, that won’t be an option for the Phils to even consider anymore. Perhaps Edmundo Sosa will be a factor on the grass, since he has a bit of experience out there and played well while Trea Turner was on the IL. The Phils don’t have a lot of holes heading into the July 30 trade deadline but adding an intriguing righty bat to the bench could be one target, especially with Luplow no longer there as a depth option.
Some other notable injury updates from around baseball…
- The Cubs placed right-hander Ben Brown on the injured list a couple of weeks ago with a neck strain, though subsequent reporting provided the more ominous-sounding diagnosis of a stress reaction in his neck. The timeline was and is murky, but Brown was able to throw from 90 feet recently, per Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune. Brown says that he was told at the time of his diagnosis that he’s already through the worst of his ailment. Montemurro describes the prognosis as a “two- to three-month burnout period,” with the first month being the worst. Brown and Jordan Wicks hit the IL within a week of each other, thinning the Cubs rotation and forcing Kyle Hendricks back into a starting role. The club is 37-41 but that still has them two games out of a playoff spot in the weak NL race. The club will try to ramp Brown up from here as long as there are no symptoms and hopefully get him back into the mix as his body allows. He has a 3.58 ERA on the year through 55 1/3 innings.
- The Padres are another club in that NL race with some rotation injuries but Yu Darvish will be back tomorrow, with AJ Cassavell of MLB.com relaying the word from manager Mike Shildt on X. Darvish had made 11 starts with a 3.20 ERA before landing on the IL with a left groin strain. He and Joe Musgrove landed on the shelf at the same time, forcing the club to use less experienced hurlers like Randy Vásquez and Adam Mazur. With Mazur posting an ERA of 7.10 in his first four starts and getting optioned recently, the return of Darvish should give the San Diego rotation a boost. The Friars are 41-41 and currently holding the final Wild Card spot in the National League, but there are seven clubs within three games of them.
Padres Place Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove On 15-Day Injured List
1:18PM: The Padres have announced that both Musgrove and Darvish have placed on the 15-day IL. Musgrove’s injury has been termed as right elbow inflammation and his placement date is retroactive to May 29, while Darvish has a left groin strain and a May 30 retroactive placement date. Vasquez and Logan Gillaspie have been called up from Triple-A.
Darvish lasted only three innings before his hamstring forced him out of his start against Miami last Wednesday, though the injury has now been diagnosed as a groin problem. This could be a new injury stemming from the initial issue, or simply a clearer diagnosis after a couple of days of testing. The Padres listed Darvish day-to-day at first, so it seems possible that Darvish might be back after only 15 days if the injury is somewhat minor in nature.
12:30PM: Joe Musgrove has been scratched from his scheduled start today and will instead be placed on the Padres’ 15-day injured list. According to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune (X link), Musgrove is again suffering from the triceps tendinitis that already sent him to the IL at the start of May. Right-hander Randy Vasquez was recalled from Triple-A El Paso to take Musgrove’s spot on the active roster and to start today’s game against the Royals.
Somewhat ominously, Acee wrote that Musgrove’s triceps issue “is not believed at this time to be a season-ending injury.” While this is positive news at the moment, the fact that there’s enough uncertainty over this lingering injury that an early end to Musgrove’s 2024 campaign is even a possibility is certainly not a good sign. Even if no structural damage is found, even relatively minor cases of inflammation or tendinitis can lead to lengthy layoffs, if a pitcher simply continues to feel discomfort when throwing.
Musgrove looked pretty good in the two starts since returning from the first IL trip, posting a 2.16 ERA over 8 1/3 frames. After laboring through three innings in his first outing on May 21, he looked much sharper on May 26 when tossing 5 1/3 shutout innings against the powerful Yankees lineup in a 5-2 Padres victory. Considering how Musgrove had a 6.37 ERA in his 41 innings prior to that initial IL visit, it seemed as though he was over his triceps problems and back in his normal form as a frontline member of San Diego’s pitching staff.
Vasquez is a logical fill-in candidate while Musgrove is out, yet Vasquez doesn’t have much big league experience, and his 5.82 ERA over 21 2/3 innings this season indicates that he might not be an ideal choice as a longer-term rotation patch if Musgrove has to miss a significant amount of time. Even beyond Musgrove, Yu Darvish is also dealing with a hamstring injury that forced him out of his last start, and it isn’t yet known if Darvish will be able to make his next start or if he might also need to visit the 15-day IL.
The Padres’ next off-day isn’t until June 13, plus the rotation has some depth question even with Darvish and Musgrove both healthy. Dylan Cease, Michael King, and Matt Waldron have settled into rotation roles, and that trio plus Darvish, Musgrove, and Vasquez have accounted for all of the Padres’ starts this season. Ryan Carpenter or Jackson Wolf could be the top Triple-A depth options, though even accounting for the Pacific Coast League’s hitter-friendly bent, Carpenter’s 8.74 ERA and Wolf’s 6.69 ERA are cause for concern. (Vasquez also has a 7.45 ERA in 19 1/3 innings for El Paso.)
Padres Place Yu Darvish On Injured List
The Padres announced Wednesday that they’ve placed righty Yu Darvish on the 15-day injured list due to a tightness in his neck and recalled right-handed reliever Logan Gillaspie from Triple-A El Paso in his place. Darvish’s IL placement is retroactive to April 15.
Darvish had been slated to take the ball for San Diego on Saturday but will now be sidelined until at least April 30. The team hasn’t provided further details on the injury or given a timetable for the length of his expected absence. The Friars also haven’t listed a replacement starter for Saturday yet, though they have an off-day tomorrow which could allow them to move everyone else up a day for the time being without starting someone on short rest.
In five starts this season, the veteran Darvish has pitched 23 2/3 innings and notched a 4.18 ERA. He’s sitting on an uncharacteristically low strikeout rate (21.9%) and high walk rate (9.9%). Darvish’s most recent start against the Dodgers, wherein he yielded three runs and fanned just two in five innings, saw his average fastball drop more than a mile per hour relative to his season debut.
With Darvish shelved for a yet-to-be-determined period of time, the Padres will lean even more heavily on the trio of Joe Musgrove, Dylan Cease and Michael King. Twenty-seven-year-old knuckleballer Matt Waldron has pitched well through three starts but comes with minimal track record in the big leagues. Other rotation options on the 40-man roster include righties Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez in addition to lefties Jackson Wolf and Jay Groome. Brito is already on the big league roster in a long-relief capacity. Groome has yet to pitch more than two innings in a Triple-A appearance this season. Both Wolf and Vasquez have been hit quite hard in their first looks of the ’24 season in El Paso.
The 37-year-old Darvish is in the second season of a six-year, $108MM contract that runs through his age-41 season. That deal, which promised Darvish five years and an additional $90MM on top of the final $18MM he was owed under his prior contract, was engineered in many ways as a means of tamping down his luxury tax hit. The $90MM in new money was closer to what one might’ve expected for a then-36-year-old Darvish over a three-year term. He’d finished eighth in Cy Young balloting a season prior, rattling off 194 2/3 innings of 3.10 ERA ball. The Padres instead stretched what looked like three-year money out over an additional five years, weighing down the annual value and lessening the contract’s luxury hit in the process.