Before progressing to bullpen sessions, Michael King was doing a lot of the sketching as he, the team and physical therapist Scott Hacker began to outline what his return to the rotation would look like.<\/p>\n
Ideally, the plan would not have included any rehab assignments. After all, Yu Darvish\u2019s final ramp-up \u2014 after the setback following his initial appearance for Triple-A El Paso in mid-May \u2014 did not include any time in a minor league ballpark.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to give and take in a negotiation,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
So one rehab assignment was more than enough for King.<\/p>\n
He threw 61 pitches in 3\u2153 innings on Sunday at Round Rock. He hit the first batter he faced and gave up six runs on four hits and a walk while striking out five.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, King said he felt 100% during the rehab appearance, after the outing and after Wednesday\u2019s bullpen at Chase Field.<\/p>\n
King will start Saturday against the Red Sox, his first appearance in a big-league game since May 18.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about time, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely had my pity party,\u201d King said. \u201cBut a lot of fun things have happened in these last couple months. Obviously, I\u2019m a (new) dad. I\u2019ve got a bunch of new teammates. We\u2019re playing really well and it\u2019s been a fun last couple months.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m just glad to be part of it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
King will have restrictions, although the Padres say they will be fluid in watching his workload. It\u2019s reasonable to expect that the pitch count will be in the neighborhood of 80 after just one rehab appearance. Having fresher bullpen arms \u2014 the team was off Thursday and Nick Pivetta, Friday\u2019s starter, is the team\u2019s best bet for a long start \u2014 was part of calculus in slotting King ahead of Dylan Cease, who will now be on six days rest for Sunday\u2019s start.<\/p>\n
For his part, King declined to put a number on Saturday\u2019s start. He hasn\u2019t been rehabbing a structural or soft tissue injury, so once his long thoracic nerve started again to fire correctly, his return was almost like a second spring training build-up and it\u2019s clear that King knows that he\u2019s not going from 61 pitches to a full-fledged starting pitcher on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said it for a little bit, but once I started getting function back, it was really just building up,\u201d said King, who said he did not throw additional pitches in the bullpen after Sunday\u2019s rehab start. \u201cSo basically, feel great and just trying to be now as efficient as I possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
They grow up so fast<\/p>\n
Xander Bogaerts<\/strong> isn\u2019t so sure this will be an emotional weekend.<\/p>\n Yes, he played for Alex Cora<\/strong>. He turned double plays with Trevor Story<\/strong> in 2022. Jarren Duran<\/strong> was a 25-year-old center fielder who played 58 games in his second year in the majors. Garrett Whitlock<\/strong> threw 78\u2153 innings between the rotation and bullpen and Brayan Bello<\/strong> threw the first 57\u2153 innings of his career.<\/p>\n With Tanner Houck<\/strong> done for the year and good friend Rafael Devers<\/strong> traded to the Giants earlier this year, that\u2019s about it as far as former teammates that Bogaerts will get to reconnect with over the weekend.<\/p>\n But he knows the names well.<\/p>\n Roman Anthony<\/strong> was a second-round pick in 2022. Marcelo Mayer<\/strong> was the fourth overall pick in 2021 out of Eastlake High School. And Ceddanne Rafaela<\/strong> was only at Double-A Portland.<\/p>\n And now they\u2019re pushing the Red Sox back into contention in the AL East (Mayer is on the injured list for now).<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been playing really good baseball, especially as of late,\u201d Bogaerts said. \u201cA very young team, a lot of energy, a lot of talent. I remember a lot of those guys over there now when they were prospects when I was over there. So to see them now in the big leagues is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n The series is just Bogaerts\u2019 second series against his former team since signing with the Padres after the 2022 season. He went 0-for-11 with a walk and three strikeouts in three games at Petco Park in 2023, but missed last year\u2019s series in Boston while on the injured list with a shoulder fracture.<\/p>\n He suspects all the changes in Boston and the time that has passed will dampen the emotions of playing against his original organization.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a different team,\u201d Bogaerts said. \u201cA lot of the guys that are on the team right now I never played with. Trevor, Duran \u2014 I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re the only ones, but all the other guys, a lot of the younger guys that came up, I know of them from the system.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally Published: August 8, 2025 at 5:37 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before progressing to bullpen sessions, Michael King was doing a lot of the sketching as he, the team…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":131624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-131623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114998654049561970","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}