SAN DIEGO — You can't find a World Series trophy in the Padres' display case, but an artist's paint brush, cast in gold, would be appropriate, in honor of three select Padres greats — each one homegrown — who dominated with flair and unorthodox brilliance that made them more interesting.
Tony Gwynn swung a toothpick and, as every San Diegan should know, batted .338.
Ozzie Smith speared bad-hop grounders with a bare hand, somersaulted when bored and set an assists record no shortstop has touched.
Randy Jones' sinkers, slower than many high schooler's fastballs, provoked streams of profanity from hitters. The lefty laughed his way across a 1976 romp in which he led the league in complete games (25), victories (22), innings (315 1/3) and WHIP (1.027). The next year, he completed a game in an hour and 29 minutes.
For his ability to shape pitches to situations, Yu Darvish warrants honorable mention alongside these Padres artistes for a beautiful 2022.
Darvish didn't just do it well, pitching to a 16-8 record and 3.10 ERA across 30 regular-season starts and a 2.88 ERA in four playoff games. He did it in style by maintaining a surprise element across 34 outings and some 215 innings, in the face of MIT-level analysis.
My favorite Darvish moment came in the 36-year-old right-hander's final full inning, when he solved Bryce Harper.
Cracking a hidden code, Darvish induced two flailing swings with his two slowest pitches of the NL Championship Series, curveballs clocked at 67.4 and 68.3 mph. They skimmed the dirt as Harper swung over them, the last for strike three, freezing a 2-1 deficit that Padres hitters overcame before Harper's two-run home run famously would eclipse two innings later.
Explaining his big 2022, Darvish said he availed himself of video tools and deep-dive stats. Applying his analysis, he dabbed more colors than on a typical pitch palette. Serial dabbling can compromise accuracy and velocity; Darvish mastered the vast array of pitches, compiling a career-best walk rate (1.7 per nine innings) and a WHIP (0.950) that even outdid Jones' epic effort in 1976 (and every other Padres pitcher in a full season). His heavy use of cutters and sliders didn't stop him from showing a mid-90s fastball across the seven months. The "rising" heat enhanced slow curves, split-fingered change-ups and sinkers.
Showing himself the true master of Digital Baseball, the brown-striped sensei outwitted the analytically marinated Dodgers and Mets. He beat the Mets twice in the regular season. They batted .128 off him. The Dodgers go to school on pitchers every year en route to winning the West race; Darvish flunked them, recording a 2.52 ERA in four games.
It was Darvish who launched the Padres' most successful postseason in 24 years, outpitching Mets co-ace Max Scherzer. He exited with one run allowed in seven innings. If less dominant, the outing in Queens was a useful imitation of Kevin Brown's Game 1 road victory in the Astrodome — opposite Hall of Fame Randy Johnson — that began the 1998 Padres' sprint to the World Series.
Darvish allowed the Dodgers three home runs in a Divisional Playoff game. His greater mistake may have been fooling the plate ump. When an arresting two-strike curveball to Max Muncy was wrongly not ruled strike three, Muncy turned the reprieve into a home run. Freddie Freeman cashed a similar ticket. At any rate, Darvish's three-run night matched Clayton Kershaw, setting up a bullpen game the Padres won to even the series.
Putting a lid on the rampaging Phillies, who routed good pitchers in the previous two rounds and would overwhelm Astros ace Justin Verlander in Game 1 of the World Series, Darvish allowed a pair of runs in Games 1 and 5 of the NLCS while logging seven and six innings.
If his big-at-the-time strikeout of Harper was relegated to the dustbins of baseball history, it was a memorable season nevertheless from a pitcher who showed he can conquer October.
