It’s mostly good news on the Michael King front: He’s dealing with a pinched nerve instead of anything structural in the shoulder or anything circulatory.
The bad news isn’t bad, per se — just open-ended: It’s up to the nerve when King returns to the Padres’ rotation.
“Now that we’ve been able to locate what the issue is … just trying to get a handle on how to release that nerve a little bit that’s preventing that (scapula) from being able to fire appropriately,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “We’ve got some really smart people, including Michael himself, involved with that process that will get that going as soon as possible, and how soon that is is to the discretion of that nerve.”
King was scratched from last Saturday’s start after sleeping on his shoulder wrong, which is the extent of what the Padres know about any event that led to the nerve pinching. He hit the injured list on Sunday and has not thrown since, although Shildt said there’s a chance he starts to play light catch as soon as Friday or Saturday.
The fact-finding that’s occurred over the last week includes King — who will be a free agent after the season if he doesn’t exercise his half of a $15 million mutual option — seeking a second opinion and managing the discomfort with anti-inflammatories.
Because King missed just one start so far, picking up a ball this weekend could allow him to return to the rotation when he can come off the injured list on June 6. Again on the good news front, King has already shown improvement, so the Padres continue to have hope that his absence will be measured in days or weeks instead of months.
“Common sense says if you’re improving, that’s good,” Shildt said. “With this specific one, if he’s not showing any incremental improvement, that that usually means a longer time frame … but if he has some improvement early, it means that it’s starting to release a little bit more, and it won’t be as long, typically, as what I understand from the medical experts.”
Either way, the Padres will need an arm to take his next turn in the rotation as left-hander Kyle Hart was optioned to Triple-A El Paso on Friday to add right-hander Bradgley Rodriguez to a nine-man bullpen for the weekend.
The expectation is that start will go to someone called up for next week’s four-game series in San Francisco.
Right-hander Matt Waldron (oblique) is making his fourth rehab start on Friday for Triple-A El Paso. He threw 61 pitches over 4⅓ innings on Sunday for Double-A San Antonio and could be stretched out enough to return to the rotation next week. Right-hander Ryan Bergert could also be a candidate for a start in San Francisco after throwing four shutout innings on Wednesday for Triple-A El Paso, giving him 13⅓ innings of two-run ball since his return to the minors.
Back to regular work
For the first time since Saturday in Atlanta, the Padres hit on the field before Friday’s game against the Pirates. On-field work is often optional for a day-after-night game as was the case on Sunday in Atlanta and on Wednesday at Petco Park, but all on-field work before Monday and Tuesday’s 6:40 p.m. starts were optional.
Call it reading the room.
The Padres were finishing a stretch of nine straight games and preparing to play 26 games in 27 days.
“We have a very experienced back-of-the-baseball-card group that knows what they need to prepare and get ready,” Shildt said. “That’s all individually different. So, yeah, at points, we all get out there and get after it every day and take our full BP and ground balls and then when you’ve got (26 games in 27 days) and you have some different time zones and you have two extra-inning games in four days, then I think common sense prevails and says we should probably think about allowing ourselves to get proper rest and be ready to go, and then give the rightful credit to a very professional, highly accomplished group of players to say, I need ground balls, I need swings in the field or I can hit in the cage.”
Notable
RHP Yu Darvish (elbow) played catch again on the field. He has not thrown a bullpen since that mid-May rehab game in Las Vegas, but that could happen as soon as this weekend.
Staff writer Kevin Acee contributed to this report.
