Yu Darvish's Stuff Remains Intact As He Makes His Return For San Diego Padres

It took a few months of a rather murky timeline, but Yu Darvish finally made his 2025 debut for the San Diego Padres on Monday night. The 38-year-old fought elbow inflammation during the spring exhibition slate that cost him over half the year. The Padres were content to let Darvish largely handle his own rehab process, which likely led to the slow ramp-up. Nevertheless, his return was set to deliver some stability to a Padres rotation in need of it given the absence of Michael King in an already thin group. 

Stability, however, will likely have to wait a few starts. Clearly working within a tight window with respect to pitch count, Darvish delivered only 3 2/3 innings of work against the Arizona Diamondbacks in a frustrating outing against a reeling division rival. Darvish's start left him with the loss to kick off his campaign in a game where the offense couldn't muster much against Zac Gallen and his 5.45 ERA. 

The focus is on Darvish, though, and despite the abbreviated appearance, the Padres are hoping that it'll set the course for a strong second half out of one of their key veteran pitchers. And there were, at least, some positives to take away from the start despite the ultimate outcome. 

Darvish threw 63 pitches in his start, leaning heavily on the curveball (22 percent usage), sweeper (19 percent), and slider (also 19 percent). Statcast had Darvish at eight different pitch types in the start, though, and everything except the knuckle-curve was thrown at least five times in terms of raw pitch count. Of course, the two don't always jive given the volume of pitch types Darvish is purported to throw. Nonetheless, this is how things shook out in his debut: 

The command actually looked pretty decent for Darvish in start No. 1. He threw 41 of his 63 pitches for strikes (65 percent) and he was able to work to a 39 percent whiff rate. The sweeper did much of the work there, as he not only generated the highest rate of swings with that pitch (26 percent) but also the highest whiff rate (63 percent). The sweeper and slider were each able to garner called strikes or swinging strikes 58 percent of the time. So, the stuff was very much present. 

As was the velocity. Darvish touched 96 mph with each of his four-seam and sinker offerings, averaging 95.1 and 94.2 MPH with each of the two, respectively. Each of those would represent an increase in his velocity on the two pitches from 2024. We're obviously looking at just one start rather than a collection of them, but it's an encouraging development regardless. 

And that really should be the takeaway. There was rust; the above visual is indicative of some inconsistency in locating pitches with confidence. That he was able to generate swings and whiffs while demonstrating upper-tier velocity should certainly check in as a positive, though. Now, it's about stretching the outing a little bit more. 

We're likely going to see a similar restriction in his next start. The aim is, undoubtedly, to weaponize Darvish atop the rotation down the stretch in the wake of King's absence and some other inconsistencies within the rotation. With maybe one more start to go ahead of the All-Star break, you can bet Mike Shildt will remain conservative in order to allow this short stretch to serve as a springboard toward more impact in the season's second half. 

It was a solid debut, to be sure. Now, the aim becomes building on it into something more sustainable after so much time missed.