Mike Shildt said he could have picked his initial postseason rotation out of a hat. He doubled back to make sure the reporters gathered around him on the fourth-floor press conference room at Petco Park understood he was joking.
The team chose Michael King as its first starter for the best-of-three series against the Braves that starts Tuesday. Joe Musgrove gets Game 2 and Dylan Cease will start a Game 3, if necessary, leaving Yu Darvish available out of the bullpen for the NL wild-card series.
That’s right.
Yu Darvish won’t start in the opening round.
“It speaks very well to our rotation and the talent we have in it,” the Padres’ manager said before Monday’s afternoon workout. “Clearly, just for the record, we did not pick it out of a hat. But Darvish being available in our bullpen and being available as we move on to start speaks volumes.”
King, Musgrove and Cease were pulled into the same meeting on Saturday in Phoenix as the Padres laid out the rotation plans.
King is on turn, having been moved off Sunday’s start after the Padres clinched home-field advantage on Friday.
Neither he nor Musgrove having faced the Braves this year certainly plays in the Padres’ favor.
The rotation’s most consistent wire-to-wire starter, King led that unit with a 2.95 ERA and just missed his 180-innings target. Still, he moved his workload from 104⅔ innings last year with the Yankees to 173⅔ innings in earning the first postseason start of his career.
“It feels great,” King said. “I was definitely happy when Shildty told me. … There are studs that could also have gone Game 1 so definitely feels really good and I’m very excited for that.”
The start will be King’s second postseason appearance, as he threw two shutout innings out of the bullpen in the NLDS at an empty Petco Park at the end of the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The home of the Padres and Texas Rangers served as a “bubble” for teams participating in the AL and NL’s division and championship series that season.
King expects a much different experience when he climbs the mound Tuesday.
“I was in the visiting clubhouse wearing a mask at all times, no fans in the stands,” King recalled. “ … I can’t wait to see this place in the playoffs. Obviously I did see it in playoffs, but nobody was in the crowd and nobody wanted either the Yankees or the Rays to win. But the fans here are absolutely nuts and I am very excited to see what we can bring.”
He added: “I can’t wait to turn up my PitchCom and make sure I can hear everything.”
Whatever Yu need
To date, the 38-year-old Darvish’s experience in the bullpen is rather thin. He pitched in relief three times in Japan — in 2006 in his Age 19 season, in 2008 and 2009 — and a handful of times in international competition, most recently setting up Shohei Ohtani in last year’s World Baseball Classic.
To get reacquainted with the experience, Darvish sat in the bullpen on Sunday at Chase Field. Two days earlier, after allowing three runs in 5⅓ innings in a win over the Diamondbacks, Darvish acknowledged what the team had to work through heading into the wild-card round.
“It may be a difficult decision for managers to make, but I think it’s a good thing to have for a manager,” Darvish said through interpreter Shingo Horie. “We just go out there and do our jobs the best way possible.”
Darvish made it easy on Shildt, telling his manager ahead of time that he’d be willing to do whatever was asked of him. Shildt later met separately with Darvish to take him up on his offer in what could be a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option.
“He had a tremendous attitude about it,” Shildt said. … “We do have a good bullpen. We have guys that have clearly been in roles that have done it for us … so we’ll stay consistent with those roles. Maybe in a longer situation, something happens (and Darvish) will eat some innings. Who knows how the series will go, but he’ll be available for whatever role we need him in, I can tell you that.”
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