SAN DIEGO — It’s too bad Yu Darvish won’t pitch again this postseason.

For baseball fans who enjoy a creative type of pitching that’s a fading art, he will be missed.

In the recent National League Division Series, the Padres’ 38-year-old starter had strong outings in Games 2 and Game 5 against the top-seeded Dodgers despite lacking the overpowering fastballs and sliders many pitchers require.

Like a painter blending colors on a canvas, Darvish succeeded by manipulating hitters with seven types of pitches and other deceptions.

His wasn’t the blowtorch approach that, out of necessity, typifies pitching in today’s reliever-driven era.

“Today you have to ‘out-stuff’ hitters because you have to bring it over the plate,” said a Hall of Famer who pitched when the strike zone’s width often stretched to 19 or 20 inches instead of the stringent 17 inches of today.

Darvish zinged occasional high-speed fastballs, reaching 96 mph against L.A. But he used the heat as a tease.

He showed a martial artist’s body control. Balancing on his right leg, he varied the speed of his left leg’s coiling action. His pitch speeds differed by up to 25 mph.

Dipping into his right-to-left pitches, he threw curveballs (21.4% of 159 pitches), sweepers (19.5%), sliders (15.7%) and cut fastballs (7.5%).

Creating pitch movement from left to right, he dealt split-fingered changeups (13.2%), four-seam fastballs (12.6%) and sinkers (10.1%).

The Dodgers touched him for just one run in Game 2, a 10-2 Padres victory. In the rematch, also at Dodger Stadium, where hot weather favored hitters, Darvish allowed two runs over the 6 2/3 innings. It wasn’t enough to prevent the 2-0 defeat that eliminated the Padres, but Darvish confused Dodgers hitters.

The lone critical exception was Kiké Hernandez. (We’re not counting Teoscar Hernández’s homer off Darvish’s nothing slider after Mike Shildt sent his starter out for the seventh inning.)

In the second inning, Kiké Hernandez hunted and got a first-pitch fastball he drove into the left-fields seats for a 1-0 lead.

It took the most anti-Dodger of Dodgers to decode Darvish.

“Before the game I was talking with the hitting guys and I was like, ‘I think we gotta be on the fastball against Yu,’” Hernandez said, per Southern California News Group’s Bill Plunkett. “He’s got way too many pitches to cover and if you’re sitting off-speed, he’s got like five off-speed pitches. They were pretty strong with their feelings about disagreeing with me. I’m glad I proved them wrong.”

Solved Ohtani

Darvish’s mastery of Shohei Ohtani opened many eyes in MLB.

It shouldn’t have.

Derek Jeter said after Game 1 the Padres should just pitch around Ohtani for the rest of the series. Jeter, an analyst for the FS1 Network, said Ohtani was too dangerous and had shown it again by hitting Dylan Cease’s 97-mph, chest-high fastball for a three-run home run in L.A.’s 7-5 win. Jeter’s colleagues David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez offered little dissent.

Darvish didn’t take Jeter’s advice, and it made for a better series.

He retired the Dodgers’ slugger in all six at-bats, striking him out three times, all swinging, and inducing a popout, a nubber and a groundout. None of the out pitches was a fastball.

(In Sunday’s NLCS opener, a comfortable-looking Ohtani surely noticed the Mets also lack a reliever like Tanner Scott, the Padre who struck out Ohtani in all four chances.)

Legacy secured

Darvish has become a postseason standout who, since a poor showing with L.A. in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series against an Astros club punished later by MLB for an illegal sign-stealing scam, has pitched to a 2.58 ERA in seven playoff starts. Six of his playoff starts have come with the Padres.

Among all starting pitchers in Padres annals, which five would I pick to start a winner-take-all game?

Kevin Brown would be my first choice.

I’d hand the ball to Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry then refuse to take it back, not knowing what goo Perry put on it.

Randy Jones belongs, too. The sinkerballer confounded the best offenses of his era. Example: He recorded a 1.70 ERA in eight starts against the two “Big Red Machine” teams that won a World Series. Pete Rose, who screamed obscenities at Jones many times, managed just one hit in 25 at-bats across those years.

Chris Young, Joe Musgrove and Blake Snell share a spot, depending on the first two’s health and whether there’s enough relief to cover a Snell wipeout.

There’s no alternating with Darvish, the master of spin.

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