DARVISH’S USAGE HANDS SNELL OPENER
Not long ago, it appeared Yu Darvish would line up as the Padres’ opening-day pitcher for a third straight season.
A relief appearance for Japan in the World Baseball Classic on Thursday all but assured that would not be the case.
After another relief appearance Tuesday in Japan’s 3-2 victory over the United States in the WBC championship game, Darvish will in the next few days join the Padres for the first time this spring. Finally, the team can begin to get a better idea of when he will be able to pitch for them and how many pitches he might throw when he does.
Multiple team sources have all but ruled out the Padres having Darvish start against the Rockies on March 30. While he also threw a lot in the bullpen on the same day as his two WBC relief appearances, the Padres’ concern is that he is not built up to go more than four innings in a game.
It appears Blake Snell is the pitcher lined up to start opening day, based on the timing of his throwing program. Each team’s openingday starter will be announced Friday at 9:15 a.m. PDT on MLB Network.
Darvish pitched three times in the WBC, a three-inning start, Thursday’s twoinning relief appearance and Tuesday’s one-inning stint. He threw a total of 93 pitches in the tournament, including 18 in Tuesday’s eighth inning.
It would have been better in terms of Darvish’s readiness for him to not pitch Tuesday. Then the Padres could have put him right to work when he arrived in Arizona.
“Get him off a mound here for three or four innings or whatever it is soon thereafter,” manager Bob Melvin opined Tuesday afternoon of the possibility of Darvish not pitching again for Japan.
Melvin quickly added “If he pitches tonight, that’s great. He can try to help them win. That’s why he went there.”
The Padres accepted the risk their pitching plans for the start of the season could possibly be jumbled or even set back by Darvish’s participation in the WBC. When they embraced the Japanese icon leaving before spring training began, they chose to cling to the belief that Darvish’s work ethic and meticulous planning would help him prepare.
Darvish began a throwing program in San Diego earlier than he normally would have.
“I know there’s a lot of questions, a lot of concern about him being ready for opening day or getting ready his first start,” Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove said Tuesday. “I don’t have a known answer, but I watched him train all offseason and he was throwing 80-pitch, 90-pitch bullpens before spring even started. So I don’t think throwing is going to be an issue.”
Musgrove’s progress
Musgrove will pitch to hitters today. But they will not be sending any balls his way.
“They’re not going to swing,” Melvin said. “We don’t want any balls hit back to him. We don’t want him reacting. Everything went well with the (biomechanical) analysis. So we’re good with getting him on a mound. But we’ll have some hitters stand in more so than anything.”
Musgrove returned to San Diego to have his delivery analyzed and compared to his usual movements to make sure he is not changing his mechanics in any way to compensate for his fractured left big toe.
He is aiming to make his first start April 6, in the season’s seventh game.
“It’s gonna be dependent on how I bounce back from (throwing) and making sure we don’t have any setbacks with the toe,” Musgrove said. “But overall, I feel really good. I feel like that’s a realistic goal.”
The typical progression for a pitcher is to get up to five innings or 90 pitches in their final spring training game. Musgrove has thrown between 40 and 45 pitches in his past two bullpen sessions and hopes to get 50 or 55 today. He would also like to get into a Cactus League game before the finale on Monday. That would allow him to work with the pitch clock and the PitchCom device worn by pitchers, both of which are new this season and Musgrove has not experienced in a game setting.
Pomeranz not ready
Drew Pomeranz had what Melvin called a “mild setback” and will not be ready for opening day.
The left-handed reliever experienced discomfort due to inflammation in his left elbow that has kept him off a mound the past week. He is throwing on flat ground, but Melvin said “we’re not sure what day he gets off a mound again.”
His absence at the start of the season does make it easier to fit in an additional long reliever to help fill in innings lost with Musgrove out.
The Padres figure to have
Nabil Crismatt, Jay Groome and one other long reliever in the bullpen at the start of the season. Julio Teheran and
Brent Honeywell would seem to be the leading candidates for that remaining spot.