Padres Notebook: Team amped by Yu Darvish's return, real progress for Michael King

SAN DIEGO-- While Padres President of baseball ops A.J. Preller kicks the tire on every possible outfielder, catcher, starting pitcher and bench piece ahead of the trade deadline, a key piece to the team's playoff hopes finally returned.

Yu Darvish is back and that's a pretty big deal. 

Nearly nine months after he last pitched in a meaningful game, coming in game five of the National League Division series against the Dodgers, Darvish returned to a depleted Padres rotation that lost Joe Musgrove for the season and is cautiously hopeful about the return of ace Michael King. 

"He's a very important part of our club," said manager Mike Shildt on Monday afternoon. "Obviously the performance piece is big. We'll get him out there tonight, see what it looks like and evaluate how long he goes. But just having him back, the thing about Darvish and similar to Joe (Musgrove), but in different ways they go about it, they're very strong leaders in our clubhouse. And Yu does it in a very low-key, demure manner. But he does have a presence in our clubhouse. Having him back and able to do both is really important to us."

Darvish's pitch count versus the Arizona Diamondbacks is expected to be around 75, but Shildt says there's no definitive pitch count or limitation. 

"It's wonderful," said Fernando Tatís. "You know whenever you get Yu Darvish back or he's on the mound, man. He's one of the best to ever do it, so we're definitely happy to get him back." 

"Oh my god, you can probably see it in my face," said Michael King with a wide smile. "I mean just seeing him doing his homework over there is nice to see. He was watching all the video on the Diamondbacks yesterday. It's just nice to see him in his routine. He's a big part of this team and even without him, he was coaching up a lot of us. It's really nice to see him back out there competing and I can't wait to watch today."

And perhaps just as importantly for the Padres playoff aspirations is the encouraging news on King, who's been sidelined since May 18th with a pinched nerve in his right shoulder.

King's nerve has finally fired back up, and he threw from around 90 feet on Monday afternoon as part of his progression phase. 

"It was just a normal kind of medium day," said King." Tomorrow will be more of a tougher, not tougher, heaver day. Throw to back 120, I only throw to 120 with maybe some throws off the mound, but that's instead of doing a little flat ground. I don't like being on flat ground. It will be off the mound and then Thursday will be my first time like really, fully touching the mound."

"The last week was the first week where we sat down, and we wrote down a progression that we both agreed upon. The thought was quick, but not too quick. And I keep pushing them to be a little quicker than that...I'm throwing a bullpen on Thursday and then we're going from there. So it's really just how I feel on Thursday. We can either speed things up, or we have to slow things down. You never know what happens after Thursday." 

Isn't That Tweet?

Notable

To make room for Yu Darvish, the Padres optioned Kyle Hart to Triple-A El Paso and transferred Michael King to the 60-day IL...Darvish is one win away from having the most combined wins between Japan's Nippon baseball and MLB. He's currently tied with Hideki Kuroda with 203 combined wins. 

Quotable

"That's sick, honestly. He's more deserving too because just the guy is he. It's well more deserving for guys who actually just have the love for teammates, he's such a great teammate as well. Always has a smile on his face and I don't know how he does it."- Jeremiah Estrada on Jason Adam's first All-Star selection