ST. LOUIS -- Yu Darvish is scheduled to make one more start before the Trade Deadline -- early next week against the Mets at Petco Park. It’s an important one.
Not because of any potential transactions involving Darvish; he isn’t going anywhere. But given the way Darvish’s performance could impact the Padres’ strategy, there will be plenty to watch for the next time he takes the ball.
Particularly after a start like this one. On Thursday night in St. Louis, Darvish made his fourth start of the season after missing the first 3 1/2 months due to right elbow inflammation. He was roughed up in the Padres’ 9-7 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium.
The veteran right-hander allowed eight runs over 3 1/3 innings, allowing three-run homers to Brendan Donovan and Willson Contreras amid a six-run second inning. He threw only 69 pitches. Afterward, Darvish made it clear that he feels fine physically and that his elbow isn’t an issue.
“Bottom line,” said Darvish through interpreter Shingo Horie, “is I should be better.”
It’s fair to cut Darvish some measure of slack. He didn’t make a rehab start in the final phase of his recovery, throwing only simulated games against Single-A hitters. He wasn’t fully built up when he returned to the big league mound either. But Darvish isn’t having any of that.
“I’ve been doing this long enough -- 21 years,” he said. “So there’s not much excuse that I can make.”
The Padres can be hopeful Darvish is still acclimating himself -- that while the rest of the league is in midseason form, Darvish is somewhere closer to late-Spring Training form. But it’s hard to ignore the results, particularly the hard contact.
Manager Mike Shildt noted that Darvish’s metrics have checked out favorably. His velocity isn’t quite back into the upper 90s, where it had been. But otherwise, the numbers indicate “everything is trending in a very normal Yu Darvish manner.”
On Thursday, then?
“He did a pretty good job getting to two strikes tonight,” Shildt said. “He just made some mistakes with two strikes. … A few too many mistakes, and they made him pay.”
Why is any of this relevant in the context of the Trade Deadline? Well, the Padres only have so many resources to work with in their potential wheeling and dealing. They need to decide where to allocate them.
It’s a near certainty at this point that they’ll acquire a bat. That’s the bare minimum on offense. Realistically, however, they need more than one hitter. On a night the San Diego offense pounded out two homers, 13 hits and seven runs, the 7-8-9 spots still combined to go 1-for-12. No team has gotten a lower OPS from the bottom third of its lineup.
The Padres might also be looking to add to their already ferocious bullpen. Jeremiah Estrada, Adrian Morejon, Jason Adam and Robert Suarez have been dubbed “the Four Horsemen” by Shildt. That group made history last month when three of them headed to the All-Star Game.
Still, there are question marks. Estrada, Morejon and Adam have each made 49 appearances this season. Only one pitcher (the Giants’ Taylor Rogers) has more. There are other solid arms in the Padres bullpen, but no obvious fifth option.
It would be a luxury, not a necessity, if they were to add another reliever. But given what we’ve seen in recent Deadlines from general manager A.J. Preller, it’s certainly possible he could “add to a strength.” He said exactly that earlier this month in an interview with MLB Network Radio.
In any case, before the Padres can chart a course, they need to take stock of their rotation. For much of the year, it has felt precariously thin. Now Darvish is back. Michael King appears to be on his way back. Suddenly, there are suggestions that Dylan Cease could be expendable -- that the Padres might trade him for controllable pieces, while freeing up flexibility financially to address holes elsewhere on their roster.
If Darvish looks like the dominant version of himself from down the stretch last season, a move like that one seems palatable. But if Darvish looks like he did on a muggy Thursday night in St. Louis (or if he is in any way compromised health-wise) there’s a much, much stronger case that the Padres should not only keep Cease in their rotation, but reallocate some of their resources so they can add to it.