Making the National League all-star team was easier, it seems, for San Diego Padres pitcher Kirby Yates than talking about it.

Which is really saying something for Yates, whose circuitous ascent from the ball fields of Kauai to the recognition of being a premier closer in Major League Baseball defied daunting odds at several turns.

Through a two-year layoff after Tommy John surgery, being bypassed in the MLB Draft out of junior college, being waived by three teams and painstakingly re-imaging and re-packaging himself as a pitcher, Yates has doggedly persisted in the quest to become an all-star.

So, when it came time to tell his family in Lihue that they’d be coming to join him in Cleveland for the July 9 Mid-Summer Classic, “I had to hold back some tears when talking to my dad (Gary),” Yates told reporters gathered around his Hawaii flag-emblazoned locker in San Diego on Sunday.

“He has been my No. 1 supporter,” Yates said. “Even when things were going bad he just said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter whatever field you stepped on or guys were older than you, whatever. You always found a way to do it. You always found a way to be good and this is no different.’ ”

For Yates, who was staring at what he acknowledges looked like his last chance to stay in the big leagues two years ago, the challenge became to be more than good, to be all-star worthy.

In the minors he had set goals to make the all-star teams in the leagues he played in. When the Padres, his third team in six months, picked him up on waivers in 2017, Yates set about minutely breaking down and carefully reassembling his game — mentally, physically and technically. Along the way, he adopted and mastered a split-fingered fastball.

In 2018, he aimed even higher, adopting the challenge of making an NL all-star team, something no other Hawaii-born and -raised relief pitcher had ever done.

“I’m going to make an all-star team, I told myself,” Yates recalled in a phone interview with the Star-Advertiser.

(Saint Louis alum Brandon League, a 2011 all-star for the Seattle Mariners, was born in California. Kaiser’s Sid Fernandez, an all-star for the New York Mets in 1986 and ’87, was a starter.)

Kirby nearly made it last summer after taking over as the Padres’ closer. He did, however, earn a berth on the MLB all-star squad that played an exhibition series in Japan last fall. The near-miss inspired renewed confidence and drive to get it done this year.

And a campaign in which he has, so far, earned an MLB-leading 27 saves (in 28 opportunities) while compiling a 1.27 earned-run average has brought the realization of the goal.

“He’s been sensational,” Padres manager Andy Green told Padres.com. “He’s been released a couple times. Some people were thinking his career was almost over, and he turns into one of the best — if not the best — reliever in the game. We’re thrilled for him.”

As a youngster growing up on Kauai, Yates recalls watching the annual All-Star Game with his family. “I always watched baseball on TV, always watched the All-Star Game,” Yates said in a phone interview. “I always dreamed of actually going there.”

To celebrate the occasion, he’ll be surrounded by family, again. “I have my family coming up. Everybody is coming to Cleveland. … We’re going to have all the Hawaii boys there,” Yates told reporters. “It has been nerve-wracking talking about it. (The selection) is just cool and I’m excited. I get to spend this (moment) with my family. I think that’s most important.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.