PEORIA, Ariz. -- The start to Yu Darvish’s 2025 season is in jeopardy of being delayed.

Padres manager Mike Shildt said on Tuesday that the veteran right-hander experienced right elbow inflammation following Thursday's Cactus League outing against the Royals. While he did play catch on a back field on Tuesday, it's unclear whether the issue would prevent Darvish from being part of the Padres' season-opening rotation.

“[After] talking to medical, we’ll see how he recovers from it,” Shildt said. “We’ll give him a couple more days. We don’t know what it is, exactly, but he did have some elbow tightness. [The fact] that he got through playing catch is a good sign, and we’ll take it day to day.”

Shildt said that it is "possible that it could affect the beginning of the season" for Darvish.

Darvish pitched four innings against Kansas City and played catch on Friday before his throwing program was paused for three days.

“He’s experiencing some general fatigue,” Shildt said when Darvish was briefly shut down from throwing. “We’re just backing him off a little bit. We’re re-evaluating his schedule. He’s been in a good place, got his four innings, got his pitch count into a good place. Just want to be smart getting into a long season.”

If Darvish were unavailable to be part of the Padres’ season-opening rotation, the race for one spot at the back of that rotation would suddenly become a race for two spots. Stephen Kolek, Kyle Hart and Randy Vásquez are top candidates for that role. Left-hander Wes Benjamin made his first start of the spring on Monday against Milwaukee.

Darvish is coming off an injury-plagued 2024 campaign, in which he made only 16 starts. He dealt with minor bouts of neck, hip and elbow soreness throughout the year. He also missed time while on the restricted list, tending to a personal matter.

Darvish was presumed to be one of four locks in the San Diego rotation -- alongside Michael King, Dylan Cease and Nick Pivetta. Shildt announced King as the team’s Opening Day starter on Monday.

Darvish was an obvious candidate and could’ve equaled a franchise record with his fourth Opening Day start. But at the very least, his bout of elbow inflammation would presumably bump him to the back of the season-opening rotation.

Despite losing right-hander Joe Musgrove for the 2025 campaign after he underwent Tommy John surgery, and now potentially being without Darvish to open the season, Shildt said he is comfortable with San Diego's starting pitching depth.

“We do have good options,” Shildt said. “That part’s good. We’ve got an Opening Day starter. We only had two [options]. We chose Michael based on the days. We’ve got Cease, obviously. We’ve really been very pleased with Pivetta and what he’s doing and what he’s going to do.

“Kolek's going to throw [Tuesday] -- he’s had a really good spring. I wasn’t able to see [Hart in Sunday's split-squad game], but the feedback I got from people I trust highly -- including our general manager -- he feels really good about Mr. Hart. … And Vásquez pitched for us last year and did a great job, and he’s been better as camp has gone on. So a lot of good options."