PADRES LOOKING FOR DARVISH TO BE AN INNINGS-EATER

The Padres begin their second turn through the rotation tonight.

Adrian Morejon finished out the first time through by going four innings in Monday’s series opener against the Giants.

Of the five starters, only Joe Musgrove has lasted longer than 42⁄3 innings so far. That’s not all that alarming in that none of the pitchers was expected to exceed 90 pitches by too much.

But the Padres need to start routinely seeing their starters go six, seven or more innings before too long.

“We know that’s something that is going to happen over time,” manager Jayce Tingler said Monday afternoon. “I don’t know if it’s crucial the second or even third time around. But we do want to see (that). As long as the guys are being efficient in their innings and aren’t being overworked for a certain inning, we do have it structured where they’re going to slowly progress their pitch count. As they do that, we’d love to see them instead of going four-andsome-change be able to take it five, six and keep it going. As the summer weather starts to heat up, we hope a lot of our guys are able to go seven, eight, nine, whatever it may be.

“We’ve also got some guys in the bullpen that are lengthened out a little bit, and so far they’ve been able to handle the workload. We’re still able to do that for a couple more starts, and then we know eventually it’s going to swing where if the starters are pitching their game, they have a chance to do some heavy lifting.”

Musgrove’s six shutout innings Saturday were a blessing, especially as they were followed by three innings from Ryan Weathers. (Just three other teams have been able to get through a game using two pitchers this season.)

While Tingler said it isn’t imperative the starters make a big jump now, it would be appreciated.

The Padres entered the season with questions about just how many innings almost all their starters could give them in 2020. None of them pitched more than Darvish’s 822⁄3 innings (including postseason) in 2020. Blake Snell, who made six postseason starts, pitched 792⁄3 innings last year.

For his history, the one who could reasonably be excluded from durability concerns is Darvish, who makes his second start tonight after throwing 93 pitches in 42⁄3 innings on opening day.

He is the only starter in the rotation to have pitched at least 130 innings in more than one season. He has done it in six of his eight previous big-league seasons — or in every season that wasn’t shortened by injury.

Chris Paddack, who went four innings Sunday, has been a starter for one full season and then a truncated season. Musgrove became a starter in 2018. Snell, who threw 42⁄3 shutout innings Friday, spent his first five seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays, who essentially don’t believe in a starting pitcher facing a lineup for a third time in a game.

Morejon was making his first real start Monday. Before that, he had not thrown more than 46 pitches in a big-league game, working out of the bullpen and as an opener in his previous 14 appearances. Monday was the first time since April 16, 2019, while he was pitching in Double-A, that he was asked to go deep in a game.

The Padres’ bullpen entered Monday’s game having allowed five runs (two earned) in 162⁄3 innings, fourth most in the majors. The relievers had struck out 16, walked just three and stranded their only inherited runner.

The bullpen accounting for four-plus innings a game is not sustainable.

It almost certainly won’t need to be. But the Padres have made no secret they are concerned about the jump in innings from last season’s 60-game season to one in which the they hope to not just play 162 but go deep in the playoffs.

Darvish will try to show the way. The only game he didn’t go at least six innings last year was his first start.

To get that far tonight, he will need to be more efficient than he was Thursday. That is an aspect of his game the Padres are counting on, for good reason.

In 2020, a season that earned him the secondmost National League Cy Young votes, he went at least six innings in his final 11 starts and seven innings in six of those.

And he never threw more than 104 pitches in a game. He threw more than 99 just three times.

So what Thursday?

“Overall, I had trouble commanding the ball,” Darvish said after that start. “It was a bit of a struggle out there. … It goes back to the last game of spring happened training. Obviously, it wasn’t a good outing, and I felt I kind of lost touch with my mechanics from that game. The struggle for me was trying to get myself back on track. I felt I was able to do that a bit today, but the biggest struggle was to get myself back mentally form the last outing of spring training.”

At the end of an otherwise brilliant spring, Darvish lasted just three innings in his final Arizona start. The inability to put pitches where he wanted leaked into the opener.

He had to throw 22 pitches in the first inning and 21 in the second. By the time he settled in — throwing 16 in the third and 18 in the fourth — it was closing in on being too late.

“Honestly, I thought he was really good,” Tingler said. “He gave up a little contact, nothing too hard in the first. They put some good atbats on him. They made him work. The pitch count got up. He was really sharp the second, third, fourth. A little bit of having to work early may have gotten to him in the fifth.”

The Diamondbacks did a superb job of waiting for pitches they wanted and spoiling several they couldn’t do much with.

Darvish got misses on 32.1 percent of the swings against him last season, 11th best in the majors. The Diamondbacks missed on just nine of their 45 swings against Darvish, a 20 percent rate. They missed on just one of 12 sliders and curveballs they swung at.

“I don’t think his command is quite there yet,” said catcher Victor Caratini, who has caught Darvish’s past 28 starts. “Compared to previous years, I don’t think his breaking stuff is exactly the same as it was. But he’s getting it. … He knows himself well. He knows his mechanics well. He knows his stuff and how his pitches should be breaking.”

Still, it was a remarkable sort of inefficiency, as Darvish threw 64 strikes among the 93 pitches. That’s 68.8 percent, the 15th-highest ratio among pitchers who have thrown at least four innings this season.

“Even if you’re getting strikes, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have good command,” Darvish said. “I wanted to sort of control the ball better.”

He’ll need to in order to get the Padres on the way to where they need their starters to be.