Padres’ Yu Darvish vows to return after devastating surgery blow wipes out 2026

The San Diego Padres woke up to bad news and a vow. Starting pitcher Yu Darvish had right-elbow surgery, flexor tendon repair with an internal UCL brace, and he’s out for 2026. The vow? At 39, after 13 MLB seasons and a lifetime of reinventions, he says he’s not done. A rotation that was already teetering just became a full-on rebuild.

In a year when A.J. Preller must rebuild a staff with Michael King and Dylan Cease headed to free agency, losing Darvish’s innings, presence, and shape-shifting pitch mix removes one of the few stabilizers the Padres could reasonably bank on. 

Padres lose Yu Darvish for 2026 to elbow surgery, but he’s planning a comeback

Even if 2025 wasn’t vintage Darvish (15 starts, a 5.38 ERA, 68 strikeouts in 72 innings) the right-hander’s ability to navigate lineups gave manager Mike Shildt a dependable matchup tool. Now, San Diego not only needs front-line impact; it needs bulk, leadership, and a bridge to 2027, when Darvish aims to resurface.

The club confirmed the procedure was performed by Dr. Keith Meister, with a flexor tendon repair paired to an internal UCL brace, an approach designed to shorten rehab relative to a full Tommy John reconstruction. Typical timelines hover around 12–15 months, which is why external reporting has Darvish sidelined until 2027. The medical path makes sense for a veteran: preserve stability, target functionality, and chase a quicker ramp without asking a 40-year-old elbow to endure the longest possible road back.

That said, the calendar isn’t gentle. Darvish will spend his 2026 season rehabbing, trying to reclaim feel rather than results, and any comeback attempts in 2027 will arrive with the usual caveats about command returning before velocity and how secondary shapes play after a long layoff. Still, if there’s a pitcher who can win with craft more than pure stuff, it’s Darvish. His career has been a master class in adaptation, spinning new looks, toggling shapes, and weaponizing sequencing to steal strikes when the radar gun doesn’t.

For the Padres, the ripple effects are immediate. Without Darvish, and with King and Cease on the open market, the rotation depth chart is less a list than a to-do. San Diego needs at least two starters who can take the ball 28–30 times, plus a swingman who can protect innings early. That likely means shopping in both aisles: a higher-end arm to front the group alongside Nick Pivetta, and a mid-tier eater who can keep the bullpen from living on Red Bull by June. Developmentally, it also raises the stakes for internal options to seize real roles rather than just spot starts.

None of this diminishes the emotional center of the story: a future Hall of Very Good-plus craftsman refusing to let an elbow define his ending. Darvish’s vow to return isn’t about nostalgia; it’s about agency. He’s earned the right to try to write one more chapter, and if the stuff cooperates, even at 92 instead of 95, his pitch lab can still script outs. For San Diego, the job now is to build a rotation sturdy enough that a 2027 Darvish comeback reads like a bonus, not a necessity. That’s the sober reality of today’s blow, and the roadmap for tomorrow’s fix.