It generally isn’t a good thing when a pitcher complains about elbow inflammation during Spring Training, especially when that pitcher is 38 years old with a lot of mileage on the arm. It was understandable for Padres fans to panic when Yu Darvish announced he was dealing with a sore elbow and would have a delayed start to the season.
The good news is that the injury didn’t require surgery which might have threatened the entire season, or possibly his career. The bad news is that the recovery still wasn’t all that swift and he ended up missing half the season.