Despite being without No. 1 starter Yu Darvish for all of last season after a spring training elbow injury and subsequent Tommy John surgery, the Texas Rangers won the American League West. The right-hander is working his way back, facing live hitters for the first time since his March 2015 surgery earlier this week, but Darvish acknowledged that he’s “not quite there yet” in most aspects of his pitching.

Darvish is on track to return in late-May, with two more batting practice sessions scheduled before he would start a rehab assignment. He also missed basically the last two months of the 2014 season with elbow inflammation before a sprained right ulnar collateral ligament was discovered early in 2015 spring training. So caution is clearly being exercised all the way around, which is absolutely the right move.

More than a year after Tommy John surgery, what seems to be a longer than typical recovery might come across as a red flag. But Darvish has maintained that his recovery process has been more fun than a challenge, and being comfortable with where he is physically is far more important than fast-tracking the process without reason.

It’s a rare team that has two legitimate aces at the top of their starting rotation, and a fully healthy Darvish with his complete repertoire of pitches would join Cole Hamels to give the Rangers that enviable situation. Availability right now is a background storyline, which Rangers manager Jeff Banister has acknowledged with a comment that he considers Darvish to be in “rehab mode.”

Down the road, when it matters more, is when Darvish has to be healthy and able to pitch to his capability. That appears to be what he and the Rangers have their eye on, and both sides deserve credit for keeping that perspective.