Yu Darvish Injury Update: Padres place ailing ace pitcher on 15-day IL due to neck tightness among other roster moves

The San Diego Padres are going to be without Yu Darvish for a little while. The ace has landed on the 15-day Injured List with an injured neck.

He has been dealing with it for a couple of days, and he's finally being put on the shelf retroactive to Apr. 15. That means it will be about two weeks until he can return, but he could be out for much longer.

The Padres are bringing up Logan Gillaspie from AAA El Paso to take Yu Darvish's spot. Darvish has been the team's ace for a long time, and it will be difficult for them to withstand the loss of a top tier pitcher.

Darvish's loss won't hurt as much as it otherwise would, though. The Padres made a surprising splash in the offseason by sending prospects to the Chicago White Sox for their ace Dylan Cease, who has a 1.99 ERA and other incredible stats.

The addition of Cease makes the loss bearable, but it's tough not to note that they no longer have a top-tier one-two punch atop their rotation, at least for the next couple of weeks.

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Yu Darvish was off to decent start in 2024

Yu Darvish is headed to the Injured List.

Yu Darvish hadn't been pitching to his usual level, but he was far from poor in 2024. The pitcher sported a 4.18 ERA and a 3.88 FIP, both numbers that aren't great but are more than serviceable.

Darvish's home run per flyball rate was lower than it has ever been. The Padres had also gotten off to a better start than they expected to, thanks to Darvish and others.

They're 11-9 right now, but after essentially tearing it down by trading Juan Soto to the New York Yankees, they weren't expecting to be a World Series contender just yet. They do still have a talented roster, but without Soto, they signaled the waving of the white flag at least partially.

Nevertheless, thanks to some hot starts from some players, they're above .500 and have performed better in games against good teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers.