As he spoke Monday afternoon at Petco Park, Michael King’s eyes darted to and from the throng of reporters that had crowded around his locker to a table on the other side of the clubhouse.

There, Yu Darvish was deep in prep work ahead of a long-awaited season debut.

King cannot wait to get back to that part of the season.

“I would love to follow in Darvish’s footsteps,” King said.

He is at least moving in the right direction.

King played catch from 90 feet on Monday afternoon, will push to 120 feet in a heavier workload on Tuesday and on Thursday will throw off the mound for the first time since he hit the injured list May 25 with the issue with his long thoracic nerve.

The team, King said, is not calling it an official bullpen — more of a touch and feel session, but the step is clear momentum after waiting for weeks for his nerve to fire again.

“I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” King said. “It’s now just a normal build-up. So I feel like I’m almost in spring training all over again and just trying to get be ready as fast possible.”

As such, King’s move to the 60-day injured list on Monday to make room for Darvish returning to the rotation was a paperwork move. More than 60 days will have passed by the time King is stretched out.

The steps taken this week are part of the progression that King, the team and physical therapist Scott Hacker began to sketch out last week. He’d been keeping his arm moving while waiting for the nerve — impacted by sleeping in the wrong position before a May 24 start in Atlanta — to fire again, so how fast King moves after Thursday will hinge on recovery after each step in his progression.

Again, because he’s not rehabbing a soft tissue injury, a return could come quick.

Could.

“I don’t have to try to make sure that something’s healed properly,” King said. “Everything in there was great going into it. It’s just the nerve shut off. So now that I’m getting the nerve firing again, it’s just that normal build-up and trying to stay safe, but try to push as much as I can, because I want to be back soon as possible.”

 

A Hart conversation

Plans for Kyle Hart to pitch in bulk relief on Sunday were finalized with a 10:30 a.m. phone call that morning to the 32-year-old left-hander.

The decision did not catch him off guard.

It had been floated as an option while he was progressing through his week on the road with Triple-A El Paso.

“It was something they seemed to be plotting for a little bit,” Hart said. “Obviously I’ll do anything to get out of Albuquerque. You want me to pitch long, short. Whatever. I was just happy to come up and have an opportunity to help us win a game, win a series.”

The next part of the job: Take a return trip to El Paso.

With Darvish coming off the 60-day injured list on Monday, Hart was a necessary cut to keep the bullpen stocked with available arms. Hart threw 43 pitches in spinning 3⅔ innings in Sunday’s win and was not going to be available for a few days.

“Tough conversation, right? You go out and basically do your job to almost perfection and get a win, but he completely understands where we’re at,” Shildt said. “We had to make a move for Darvish, and we did, and have used some of our bullpen, and so we needed to keep our bullpen intact and as fresh … as possible.”

Hart retired all 11 batters he faced after Morgan allowed a run in the first 1⅓ innings. That set up Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam, Adrián Morejón and Robert Suarez to finish the game, Hart’s third win in a disjointed season.

Hart began the year on the opening day roster, won his Padres debut, was roughed up in Chicago and then won his third start.

But he was bounced out of the rotation after two more poor starts, made a spot start in May (4 ⅔ IP, 5 ER) and returns to El Paso with a 5.83 ERA in 29⅓ innings in the majors.

 

Notable

RHP Ryan Bergert (forearm contusion) rejoined the clubhouse a day after pitching into the fifth inning in a rehab start for Triple-A El Paso. He allowed all four of his runs in the first inning and ultimately threw 44 of his 63 pitches for strikes. Bergert could be an option to return to the rotation as soon as Friday, especially if the Padres want to use a six-man rotation to give all the starters an extra day — especially Darvish — heading into the All-Star break.