The Friars upset the Atlanta Braves in a two-game Wild Card round sweep, then pushed the eventual World Series winner Los Angeles Dodgers to five games before being eliminated in the Division Series.
The Padres enter the 2025 season hoping to make the playoffs for the second time since joining the National League as an expansion team in 1969, and the first time since 2005 and 2006.
Friars have enjoyed a relatively healthy spring.
Of course, the Padres would like to do better than that. The San Diego club has only made two World Series appearances and won one. In 1984, they lost four games to one to the Detroit Tigers. The Padres were next in the Fall Classic in 1998, but they had the misfortune to run into a New York Yankees juggernaut that had won 114 regular season games and swept the Padres in four straight.
The Padres’ 2025 season has started off pretty well in Spring Training, with only a few scattered injuries, with the exception of starter Joe Musgrove, who will miss the entire season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Unfortunately, with Opening Day just 10 days away, the Padres received perhaps the worst news of the spring when 12-year veteran starter Yu Darvish, who is entering the third season of his six-year, $108 million contract, was shut down from throwing indefinitely due to what San Diego manager Mike Shildt described as “general fatigue.”
Darvish, 38, was scratched from his scheduled Cactus League start against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday, and the team said he will be evaluated daily to determine when he is ready to resume his throwing program, according to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
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According to the Union-Tribune, the Padres have focused on keeping Darvish refreshed throughout the season so that he can be effective late in the season and, maybe, in the postseason.
It is not surprising that Darvish is feeling tired. Darvish, who spent his first seven seasons pitching for the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Pacific League, will enter his 20th professional season in 2025.
Darvish made only 16 starts and 81 2/3 innings last season, his fourth with the Padres, due to a series of injuries, including a groin strain and elbow inflammation. But he also spent two months away from the team on the MLB restricted list while he dealt with what was termed as a “personal family matter” which he refuses to share publicly.
Darvish’s tiredness has left the Padres with only three positions filled in their five-man starting rotation. Those three pitchers are now Michael King, Dylan Cease, and Nick Pivetta, with trade speculations swirling around Cease. The Padres have yet to decide on a fifth starter.
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