Opposition research: Yu Darvish

The Padres’ ace is hoping to make up for lost time

It generally isn’t a good thing when a pitcher complains about elbow inflammation during Spring Training, especially when that pitcher is 38 years old with a lot of mileage on the arm. It was understandable for Padres fans to panic when Yu Darvish announced he was dealing with a sore elbow and would have a delayed start to the season.

The good news is that the injury didn’t require surgery which might have threatened the entire season, or possibly his career. The bad news is that the recovery still wasn’t all that swift and he ended up missing half the season.

Darvish finally made his 2025 debut against the Diamondbacks on Monday, and the results were promising if uneven. He walked three batters and hit another and was limited to just 3.2 innings before he reached his pre-mandated pitch count. However, he was still able to throw his wide repertoire of pitches and struck out five batters.

The Padres were encouraged by what they saw and were especially encouraged that he still felt healthy the day after his start.

The Phillies hope that he is still isn’t at full strength, because he has a history of dominating them. In eight career starts against them, he is 3-1 with a 2.15 ERA. The Padres did lose both of his starts in the 2022 NLCS, but it’s hard to place too much blame on Darvish who gave up just four runs in 13 innings.

X-Men character of the series

Lady Deathstrike

Since I wrote about one of the best Japanese pitchers in MLB history, it made sense to talk about one of the deadliest Japanese characters in X-Men history.

Lady Deathstrike was born in Japan to a crime lord who was instrumental in creating the process that bonded adamantium to Wolverine’s bones. This led to her becoming a bit obsessed with the X-Man, to the point where she had herself made into a cyborg, complete with a set of adamantium claws.

Additional thought about the series

Unlike San Francisco’s Oracle Park, the Phillies have played well in San Diego in recent seasons. The Phillies are 8-2 at Petco Park over the past three seasons, including a three-game sweep last year.

That shouldn’t be a surprise because the Phillies have long held the advantage in this matchup, with the Padres putting up a winning record against them in just three seasons since 2001. But things really started going in the Phillies’ favor in the 2022 NLCS. (You might remember that series as the Phillies won and it featured a fairly important home run by Bryce Harper.) If the Padres wanted revenge for that series, they have a funny way of showing it, going 4-12 against the Phillies since then.

Of course, we all know why the Phillies have dominated the Padres. If this isn’t a franchise cursing video, I don’t know what is:

Now let’s see the Phillies continue that domination and end the first half on a high note!