Ace among aces: Darvish on Opening Day

As the Padres spent their offseason acquiring ace after ace, building one of the sport's most electric starting rotations, a noteworthy side effect quickly emerged: Come March, they’d have to make the most intriguing Opening Day starter decision in franchise history.

Decision made: It's Yu Darvish.

With a week remaining until the Padres open their season against the D-backs on April 1 at Petco Park, manager Jayce Tingler named Darvish his Opening Day starter. Tingler added that left-hander Blake Snell -- acquired via trade on the same day as Darvish -- will start the team's second game.

“Needless to say how honored I am to be given the opportunity to pitch on Opening Day,” Darvish said through a team interpreter. “I really didn’t think this would happen, just because of the types of pitchers that we have on this ballclub. But very honored.”

Darvish, who received the honor once before, with Texas in 2017, faced the Rangers in his final start of the spring on Thursday and endured his roughest outing in the Padres' 11-10 win. Darvish surrendered four runs and needed 76 pitches to get through three innings. He allowed four walks and three hits -- and a whopping seven stolen bases (as he said he chose to focus on honing his own mechanics, rather than controlling the running game).

“I take this as a positive, in the sense that you want to get the negative out,” Darvish said. “You actually do want to have those outings during Spring Training.”

Not that the Padres have much reason for concern. Darvish entered his start Thursday with no runs allowed in two Cactus League starts. His most recent outing came on a Padres backfield last week, where he tossed five scoreless frames. Darvish even called out some pitches he was about to throw -- Padres Minor Leaguers still couldn't hit him.

It has been a while since the Padres could truly line up an ace for Opening Day -- and they had a couple to choose from this spring. San Diego hasn’t given the ball to a starter who earned Cy Young Award votes in the previous season since Jake Peavy in 2008.

With Chicago last year, Darvish posted a 2.01 ERA and finished second in the National League Cy Young Award voting. He carried that dominant run into Padres camp this spring, too.

"Just looking back at my whole career," Darvish said earlier this month, "I think I'm at my best right now."

That's quite a statement, considering everything Darvish has accomplished. Across eight seasons, Darvish owns a 3.47 ERA and a mark of 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings, which stands as the best for a qualifying starting pitcher in Major League history.

Darvish does it with a blend of what he says are 11 different pitches. He uses them in a unique way, too, generally throwing his slider and cutter early in counts and often saving his electric four-seam fastball to put hitters away.

In 2014, Darvish reached 500 career strikeouts faster than any pitcher in Major League history -- with new teammate Wil Myers as his victim. Suffice it to say, Myers is thrilled that he won’t have to face Darvish this season.

"I don't have to strike out against him this year, which is good," Myers quipped. "He's a great guy. He's been great so far in this clubhouse. Everybody in here is looking forward to watching this guy go about his business. ... He's got quite the arsenal of pitches, and he can throw any at any time."

Tingler didn't divulge the rest of his starting five, but he noted that he liked the concept of putting Snell between two right-handers. It already seems likely that right-hander Joe Musgrove will get the ball for the third game. In their last three trips through the rotation this spring, the Padres have lined up Darvish-Snell-Musgrove-Chris Paddack-Adrian Morejon. That seems like the likeliest projection for their season-opening rotation.

That list, of course, doesn't include Dinelson Lamet, who made his Cactus League debut on Wednesday night. The Padres are building Lamet back slowly from the elbow injury that forced him to miss the postseason last year. He has passed every test thus far but won’t be built to a starter’s workload by early April.

Even without Lamet, the Padres had a wealth of options to pick from -- a stark contrast from recent seasons when choosing an Opening Day starter felt like more of a chore than a celebration of an elite pitcher. In Darvish, Snell, Musgrove and Paddack, the Padres boast four pitchers who have received Opening Day starts in the past. Snell, of course, won the 2018 American League Cy Young Award. Like Darvish, he has been excellent this spring.

"That's a really hard decision," Tingler said. "What would've made it even more incredibly tough would've been if Lamet was built up, as well. I certainly think there was a strong case for him to take the ball Day 1.

"At the end of the day, I don't think you can go wrong."