Opinion: Padres will miss starting pitcher Yu Darvish

Yu Darvish (D. Benjamin Miller, Wikimedia Commons)

The San Diego Padres will be without starting pitcher Yu Darvish of Osaka, Japan for the entire 2026 Major League Baseball regular season. The reason is because he is recently had ulnar collateral ligament surgery to fix a problem with his pitching elbow.

Darvish, who is right-handed, struggled during the 2025 Major League Baseball regular season. He had a record of five wins and five losses with an earned run average of 5.38. The five-time All-Star had the worst season of his MLB career, from an ERA perspective. Despite the high ERA, Darvish had strong control as he only allowed 19 walks in 72 innings.

The loss of Darvish is significant. While with the Texas Rangers in 2013, Darvish led the Major Leagues with 277 strikeouts. Then with the Chicago Cubs in 2020, he led the Majors with eight wins during the season that was cut short due to coronavirus.

When you think of the best Japanese active pitchers, Darvish can be considered in the conversation alongside the Los Angeles Dodgers big three–Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki. Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki were instrumental in leading the Dodgers to a World Series title this past Saturday.

One positive story with San Diego at the moment is that they are expected to get Joe Musgrove back. Musgrove missed all of last season with Tommy John Surgery. San Diego’s ace at the moment is Canadian Nick Pivetta of Victoria, British Columbia. He had career highs last season in wins (13), earned run average (2.87), innings pitched (181 2/3), strikeouts (190), and WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 0.99.