TORONTO — Yu Darvish planned to come to Toronto. But he is not here.
By all s, there has been no setback in his return from the elbow inflammation that has sidelined him since mid-March.
Darvish is simply not ready to pitch, based on how he is feeling.
“Darvish is doing well, recovering, playing catch, seeing what the next steps are,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “We’re evaluating day by day. So stay with us. … We’re taking it in a big view of the season.”
He worked four innings in 51 pitches in his lone rehab start, with Triple-A El Paso, last Wednesday. He hit 97 mph with his fastball.
Essentially, there will be clarity when Darvish provides it.
“Literally day to day,” one source said regarding how the team is proceeding, taking its cues from Darvish.
The expectation now is that he will the team in Atlanta. However, there is not an expectation he will start against the Braves. The team anticipates using a five-man rotation until after their May 29 day off, which will precede a run of 13 straight games and 26 games in 27 days.
No one in the organization has expressed impatience with the situation yet.
In a sense, something like this was always the plan.
The Padres have said since before spring training they were going to be judicious with the 38-year-old right-hander this season, hoping to have him available and strong later in the season. And ever since he was shut down in the middle of spring training, he has been the driver of the pace of his rehab.
Darvish will turn 39 on Aug. 16 and has been plagued by various injuries for at least a portion of each of his five seasons with the Padres.
He missed half of last season due to an elbow issue and a personal leave. He returned in September and had a 2.78 over 22⅔ innings in his final four starts. Then he was sterling in two starts against the Dodgers in the National League Division Series, allowing one run over seven innings in Game 2 and two runs across 6⅔ innings in Game 5.
“At times for Yu-san, less is more,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said early in spring training. “And I think for us in 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.”
