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Darvish has both a 90-95 mph two-seam SINKER, and a 92-98 mph four-seam FASTBALL He can CUT his fastball at 88-90 mph, has an 87-90 mph SPLITTER and also has a devastating sinking 81-84 mph SLIDER, excellent late rotation on his 72-75 mph CURVEBALL, will show a 69-72 mph slow curveball, and has an 87-89 mph CHANGEUP. That is six pitches!
His heater plays up because it has quality life; and he has excellent command. And he can also cut it. He actually has two versions of his curve: a harder version that gets swings-and-misses, and a slower version to get ahead in the count. He keeps hitters guessing. (2018)
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His tentacle-like limbs gave way to an exaggerated, sweeping pitching motion when he first turned pro as he tried to wind his long arms and legs through the twists of his delivery. His motion, while inefficient from a physics standpoint, produces impressive baseball results.
Darvish stands tall in his delivery and possesses good athleticism that allows him to consistently repeat his delivery and command his pitches.
"I'm a big guy, right?” he said, extending his arms. “But I began to realize that by actually using my body like a big guy, I couldn’t control my pitches the way I wanted to. I could throw the ball hard, but at this level if you’re not accurate, it’s easy for batters to light you up with home runs. That’s when I started concentrating on making my movements more compact. It just seemed to me that smaller movements would produce the kind of pitching I desired.” (Brad Lefton-NY Times-2/19/2009)
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2016 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam fastball 42.3 percent of the time; Sinker 17.3% of the time; changeup 2.1%; Slider 17%; Curve 9.7%; Cutter 9.3%; and his slow curve 2.4% of the time.
2017 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam fastball 35 percent of the time; Sinker 16.4% of the time; changeup 1.7%; Slider 25%; Curve 5.7%; Cutter 15.9%; Split .5% of the time.
2018 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball 37.8% of the time, his Sinker 17.8%; Change 2.3%; Slider 23.5%; Curve 3.1%; Cutter 13.4%; Split 1.9%; and Slow Curve less than 1% of the time. Average velocity: 4-seam 95 mph, Sinker 94.1, Changeup 90.2, Slider 85, Curve 76, Cutter 90, Split 90.9, and Slow Curve 64.6 mph.
2019 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball 25.9% of the time, his Sinker 8.8%; Change 3.1%; Slider 45.1%; Curve 6.4%; Cutter 5.1%; Split 5.3%; and Slow Curve less than 1% of the time. Average velocity: 4-seam 94.4 mph, Sinker 94.5, Changeup 90.8, Slider 85.2, Curve 77.3, Cutter 91.3, Split 88.9, and Slow Curve 68.8 mph.
2020 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball 16.6% of the time, his Sinker 9.5%; Change 2%; Slider 46%; Curve 14.5%; Cutter 5%; Split 5.7%; and Slow Curve less than 1% of the time. Average velocity: 4-seam 96 mph, Sinker 95.1, Changeup 90, Slider 85.5, Curve 79, Cutter 92.6, Split 90.5, and Slow Curve 70.5 mph.
2022 Season Pitch Usage/Avg. Velo: Slider 46.6% - 84.7 mph; Fastball 23.7% - 95 mph; Sinker 9.7% - 94.4 mph; Curve 7.8% - 76.5 mph; Split 6.3% - 89.3% - 89.3 mph; Cutter 4.7% - 90.5 mph; Change 1% - 87.7 mph.
2023 Season Pitch Usage/Avg. Velo: Fastball 17% - 94.8 mph; Sinker 18.5% - 94.4 mph; Slider 37% - 84.2 mph; Curve 11.6% - 76.4 mph; Cutter 8.6% - 91 mph; Split 7% - 89.2 mph.
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April 3, 2013: Darvish retired the first 26 batters he faced before coming up one out short of a perfect game.
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July 30, 2013: For the fourth time in 2013, Darvish had a 14-strikeout game, passing Nolan Ryan for the most times accomplishing the feat in a season in Texas Rangers history. Darvish recorded double-digit punch-out's for the 16th time in his career. And he fell two short of tying the franchise record for most strikeouts in a game, twice done by Ryan. Darvish is the first pitcher with four 14-K games in a season since Randy Johnson in 2004.
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In 2013, Yu finished second in the AL Cy Young voting to Max Scherzer of the Tigers.
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In 2013, Darvish lead the Major Leagues in strikeouts, with 277. That was the most since Randy Johnson in 2004 (290).
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"He's got so many pitches that you can pick any one you want to throw at any time," A.J. Pierzynski said in 2013. "It's not like he has two pitches, this one or that one. I mean, you might want a 94-mile-an-hour split-finger instead of a 97-mile-an-hour fastball or a 60-mile-an-hour curveball. That's when it's difficult to get on the same page because he's got so many weapons."
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Darvish lost two no hitters with two outs in the ninth inning in his time with the Rangers. The first came on April 13, 2013, on the road against the Astros. He lost a perfect game and a no-hitter at the same time. The second was on May 9, 2014, in Arlington against the Red Sox.
Darvish is one of only three pitchers in MLB history to have a no-hitter broken up with two outs in the ninth inning on two separate occasions, according to ESPN. The other two are the Washington Senators' Bill Burns (1908 and 1909) and the Blue Jays' Dave Stieb (1988).
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April 6, 2014: Darvish set a Major League record by striking out the first two batters he faced. The two strikeouts gave Darvish 500 for his career in 402 innings. He became the fastest pitcher as a starter to ever reach 500 strikeouts as far as number of innings it took to get there. Kerry Wood held the old record by doing it in 404 2/3 innings. Mark Prior did it in 421 2/3 innings. And Stephen Strasburg did so in 426 innings.
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June 11, 2014: Yu pitched the first shutout by a Texas righty since Alexi Ogando blanked the Chicago White Sox in May 2011. And with his 24th career game with at least 10 strikeouts, Darvish is tied for the second most in club history behind Nolan Ryan, who has 34.
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September 8, 2017: With six strikeouts in the Dodgers' 5-4 loss to the Rockies, Yu Darvish became the fastest pitcher in Major League history to reach 1,000 strikeouts, in both games and innings. Darvish accomplished the feat by striking out Carlos Gonzalez on an 84-mph slider for the first out of the fourth inning, the 812th inning of his career. The righthander was appearing in his 128th game. Both marks topped former Cubs ace Kerry Wood, who reached 1,000 Ks in 134 games and 853 innings. (J Thornton - MLB.com - Sept 9, 2017)
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Yu is able to locate his pitches extremely well. He has excellent command. You would have a hard time finding any pitcher with as exceptional control of every pitch in his repertoire as Darvish has.
His delivery is the same until the ball leaves his hand—then one baseball morphs into five that shoot off in different directions, like fireworks.
Asked how it felt to be up against that arsenal, Jason Giambi said, "Like facing David Copperfield. He will throw something at you, and it would disappear, and you would say, 'There's no way that happened. Show me how you did that,'" Giambi said.
Yu's critics want more first-pitch strikes, lower pitch counts in the early innings and, in general, more consistency. He is naturally analytical and relishes combing through data to figure out a hitter's weaknesses. (Mike Pillucci - Sports Illustrated - 11/22/2017)
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Most starters work with three effective pitches; some of the better ones can mix in a fourth. According to Fangraps,
You throws eight different pitches: a 4-seam fastball, cutter, curveball, slow curve, sinker, slider, change-up, and splitter. Eight pitches. All effective. And most with crazy movement.
In 2017, the difference in velocity between his fastball (94 mph) and curveball (73 mph) was 21 mph.
"Hitting-wise, he's hard to time." Cubs catcher Willson Contreras said. "You have to get the right timing because he starts leaking, and he throws 94-95 mph. His breaking balls are some of the best I've ever seen."
Hitters generally have no idea what's coming because he has the ability to make everything look the same. It's very difficult when you're a hitter and they're all coming out the same, and, at the end, the last couple of feet, they decide to take a left turn or stay true and straight. (Gary Cohen - Cubs Vine Line - April 2018)
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Darvish has pitches that change every season. He has the ability to grasp how his body's movements affect his pitching performance. He can tweak his mechanics during a game without even watching video.
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Some people think Darvish could actually end up being one of the best pitchers in the history of the game of baseball.
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Yu has said that he can hit 82 mph on the radar gun … with his left hand. While warming up, Darvish likes throwing lefthanded in order to maintain his balance and keep both arms strong.
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In 2018, Yu had an amazing 29.7 percent strikeout rate for his career. That is the best K-rate for any pitcher, minimum of 100 starts, in Major League history! That's better than Clayton Kershaw. Better than Randy Johnson. And better than Nolan Ryan!
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In 2017, Darvish had the 25th-best spin rate of 2,516 RPH. Spin rate is one of those secondary skills that can help save a pitcher when is locations isn't at its best and elevate performance to a higher plane when he's in command of all his pitches.
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2018 Improvements: Darvish eliminated the double leg pump during his delivery.
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Best pitch: Yu Darvish's curveball. How he uses it: sparingly. Everyone knows Darvish has a big curveball—almost an eephus pitch—but he keeps it in his back pocket most of the time in favor of the fastball, slider, cut fastball, split-finger and changeup. So hitters know he can throw a curve, but they can't sit on it because it rarely comes their way.
What they say about it: Cubs pitching coach Jim Hickey said. "It is effective because it is a little bit of an ambush, if you will. I think it could be an effective part of his repertoire. For me, personally, we've been trying to simplify it a little bit, just by doing a little bit less versus trying to work six pitches into the mix. There's certainly a spot for the curveball. There have been times in his career when it was his put-away pitch."
- 2019 Improvements: Consider a recent sixth inning a test drive for Darvish, who provided an enticing look at an extra weapon that could permanently return to his arsenal.
Darvish clocked 98.7 mph on his final pitch—a two-seamer—that hit Lewis Brinson and the home-plate umpire.
It's a pitch that he hadn't yet thrown in 2019 but had been working on in bullpens between starts, an offering that will allow him, as Darvish explained, to "mix it up," and make things less predictable.
"I remember during the game, our staff brought it up and then it showed up," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said the next day. "Yu looked right in the dugout and [he and the staff] smiled at each other because it was pretty successful."
Here is the breakdown of Darvish's two-seamer usage over the past few seasons:
Darvish turned to his two-seamer 10 times in his recent sixth inning alone, when he flashed upper-90s velocity rather than his typical low-90s. He used the pitch on 21 percent of his total pitch count (96). According to Statcast, of the 20 two-seamers, Darvish got six called strikes, two foul balls, and a 75 mph average exit velocity. (April 15, 2019-Christina De Nicola -MLB.com)
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May 15, 2019: Darvish leaned heavily on his cutter (38 out of 102 pitches) and balanced that with his four-seamer (32) and slider (16) as his secondary weapons. Just two starts ago, Darvish featured his sinker 51 times against the Cardinals. He mixed that offering on just eight occasions. One of those was a 97-mph sinker that ran into the upper part of the strike zone in the fifth for Votto's second strikeout of the night.
"If he struggled," Darvish said, "that means I'm good."
The goal of the sinker use against St. Louis was to gain confidence in the pitch for those outings in which the four-seam command is absent. Consider that box checked. The return to more cutters and sliders is Darvish admitting that, as important as it is for him to establish his fastball, the pitches with break are his real strength. That was a point made by Cubs manager Joe Maddon earlier this week.
"What we've seen in the past is that he actually does command the cutter, slider better," Maddon said in the wake of Darvish's previous start against the Marlins. "There's nothing wrong with throwing more of those. There's not a thing wrong with that."
Partially due to the pregame plan, but then also due to seeing how his pitches were working in the early innings, Darvish followed that road map against the Reds.
"It wasn't from my advice to him," Maddon said. "That was just all him, feeding off what he felt today."
Davis added that in-game adjusting is critical for Darvish.
"With him having so many pitches," Davis said, "you've just got to figure out, 'What is the best thing to use that day?'"
Darvish admitted that the various approaches show that he has been searching for the right combination.
"I'm still trying to find my way," he said. "I think my ability is not a fastball and sinker. My ability is slider and cutter."
It marked the first time since Aug. 1, 2013, that Darvish had at least 11 strikeouts with no walks. No Cubs pitcher had achieved that feat since lefty Jose Quintana did so in his Chicago debut on July 16, 2017.
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July 12, 2019: If the Cubs could put Darvish’s performance in a bottle labeled “Yu’s Secret Stuff,” a la the film "Space Jam," they would. Darvish’s “stuff” played a huge role in both his and the Cubs’ success in the 4-3 victory over the Pirates at Wrigley Field. Darvish baffled the Bucs with his six-pitch repertoire. He allowed just two hits over six scoreless innings.
“Anytime, anywhere, I’ll take that,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “He’s getting real comfortable in his Chicago Cubs skin right now. He’s just a different cat.”
Darvish missed bats with all six pitches in his start inducing 14 swings-and-misses on the fastball, cutter, changeup, curveball, slider and his splitter. The splitter, which he hadn’t thrown much in recent starts was a late addition to his repertoire.
“He wanted the splitter back out. He felt good about it,” Maddon said. “It was outstanding to go with the cutter, slider and then he would change speeds off that to give it a bigger break.”
“Yeah, it worked well,” Darvish said. “But when I threw it against lefties, they didn’t chase. So I went to the changeup after the third inning and that worked well.”
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2019 Improvements: It took Cubs closer Craig Kimbrel a long time to learn, develop, and hone the knuckle-curve that he uses as a swing-and-miss weapon. Rookie reliever Rowan Wick learned it during Spring Training and is still gaining trust, feel, and consistency with the pitch.
Yu Darvish asked Kimbrel about his curveball grip and approach, began toying around with the pitch, and is already using it in games to collect strikeouts.
"He walked up to me the other day and he was like, 'Hey, I've been working on that,'" Kimbrel said at Citi Field. "I was like, 'Cool.' I didn't know he was going to go out and throw it. I thought that was pretty cool."
Darvish now has three curveball variations. The righthander has a slow curve that drops under 70 mph and a regular one that sits around 75-76 mph. In his past two starts, Darvish started mixing in the harder knuckle-curve, which comes in around 80-82 mph and has a sharper downward break. (Jordan Bastian - MLB.com - Aug. 28, 2019)
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September 17, 2019: Yu set a single-game Cubs franchise record with eight consecutive strikeouts.
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Why Yu's fastball is so nasty: 77 strikeouts on cutters. Yu throws, oh, just your normal 10 pitches . . . so saying "fastball" could mean anything. We're talking about the one that launched him on his insane run of 124 strikeouts to seven walks over the final three months of the 2019 season: his cutter.
If you asked Darvish, he might tell you he throws two cutters—a regular cutter (in the upper 80s) and hard cutter (in the low 90s). But we're grouping them together for our purposes, since it's still the same basic pitch type. Darvish's cutter became his most-thrown pitch last season, leap-frogging his four-seamer as he increased its usage nearly threefold, from 13.5 percent to 36.5 percent. With his superior command of the cut fastball, Darvish transformed his season. No one notched more strikeouts on cutters than Darvish in 2019 (77). And he held hitters to a .195 batting average over 246 at-bats decided on that pitch. (D Adler - MLB.com - March 30, 2020)
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"It's just fun to watch him work, because he can do so many things that a lot of us can't do and never were able to do with a baseball," Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy.
The "Supreme" is an alternative to his traditional splitter. Hottovy said it was a hybrid pitch that combined a two-seam fastball with a split, and the video posted by Darvish shows the offering fading down and in toward the righthanded batter's box. (Bastian - mlb.com -7/5/2020)
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2020 Season: It’s nearly impossible to overstate the performance of Yu Darvish this season, a career year for the 34-year-old righty.
Career-low ERA (2.01) and FIP (2.23). A 6.65 strikeout-to-walk rate, easily the best of his career. His best-ever WHIP (0.961). And with a 221 ERA+, Darvish nearly doubled his previous best, set in 2013, when he finished second in AL Cy Young voting.
His league-leading FIP could be the difference this year. Darvish also led the Senior Circuit in fWAR (3.0), trailing only Shane Bieber of Cleveland (3.2) among all starters in baseball.
Thanks to an historic repertoire of pitches, Big Yu posted 8 wins with the Cubs, a 22-win pace for a full season. There’s no doubt Darvish has been elite since turning it around after the 2019 All-Star Break.
Final Stats: 76 IP, 93/14 K/BB, 8 W, 2.01 ERA, 2.23 FIP, 3.0 fWARFinal Grade: A+ (Michael Canter - October 26, 2020)
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Nov 11, 2020: There is a mutual respect between Yu Darvish and Trevor Bauer. They once shared an agent, creating an avenue for a kind of professional friendship that has included sharing ideas and training methods.
Bauer and Darvish squared off twice during the 2020 season, giving them a chance to take all those conversations to the mound. They each came out on top once, offered compliments in postgame Zoom sessions and soon found themselves in a battle for the NL Cy Young.
The Baseball Writers' Association of America voted Bauer as the best pitcher in the NL for his work with the Reds, recognizing him the Cy Young Award winner. Darvish also turned in a campaign worthy of that honor, but the Cubs’ ace finished as the runner-up.
Darvish earned three first-place votes and finished with 123 points in the balloting, while Bauer netted 27 of the 30 first-place votes and won the accolade with 201 points. Mets ace Jacob deGrom finished third in voting. (J Bastian - MLB.com - Nov 11, 2020)
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Dec 9, 2020: Darvish was named to the All-MLB First Team rotation, alongside 2020 Cy Young Award winners Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer, plus Jacob deGrom and Max Fried. Picking Darvish was a no-brainer, given that he led the National League in WAR (3.0 per FanGraphs) in 2020 and finished second to Bauer in balloting for the NL Cy Young. Darvish's WAR, 2.23 fielding independent pitching and 2.30 win probability added in 2020 each ranked second to Bieber in the Majors.
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2020 Season: Darvish's eighth MLB season was his best one yet. The 34-year-old finished second in NL Cy Young voting, won more games than any other pitcher in his league, and posted career-best marks in ERA, FIP, and walks per nine innings. While his lone playoff start against the Miami Marlins wasn't his finest work, Darvish still managed to hold Miami scoreless for 6 2/3 frames before things unraveled.
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March 7, 2021: "A lot of the hitters are looking for off-speed when they face me," Darvish said through a team interpreter after the game. "That's why maybe the fastball works."
That's Darvish's pitching style in a nutshell. For Padres fans who didn't watch much of him before the December deal that brought him to San Diego, it's time to get used to that very distinct pitching style. There's no such thing as a fastball count with Darvish. He threw four-seamers far more frequently when he was ahead in counts last season than when he was behind.
"A lot of times, it plays backwards from what people would like to see," pitching coach Larry Rothschild said earlier in camp. "But I think it's highly effective, and he's gotten comfortable in his own skin with that. For me to get in the way of that would be a big mistake." Darvish used his cutter and slider expertly to get ahead. Then, it was lights out. (Never a good idea to fall behind against Darvish — not with the dizzying array of weapons at his disposal.)
Darvish struck out three in the first inning, using his curve for the first, his fastball for the second and his splitter—which he's been working on with fellow Japanese pitching icon and Padres special advisor Hideo Nomo—for the third. It was an early glimpse into the arsenal that took Darvish to a second-place finish in NL Cy Young voting in 2020 and a 2.01 ERA. Darvish is a nine-year veteran, but the way he sees it, he's never been better.
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In 2020, Darvish's best pitch was his slider. When the Padres added Yu Darvish this off-season, they gained an elite arm with one of baseball’s best repertoires. Darvish’s best pitch seems to vary each year and you could argue that it’s one of the aspects of his game that makes him great. In 2020, his slider was the offering that seemed to outshine. 14.9 inches of horizontal break made the movement of this pitch elite. A colossal 46.6% CSW left him near the top of the leaderboard. Hitters couldn’t do much with the slider, hitting just .095 against it.
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May 17, 2021: And here's what makes Darvish so truly unique: He'll set you up with his dizzying array of breaking pitches. Then once he's ahead of you, and you've begun to guess breaking ball, he has upper-90s heat in his back pocket. Darvish threw a beautiful 95.4 mph two-seam fastball with life that tailed over the inside corner at the letters. McMahon swung, but he didn't have much of a chance.
“I’ve seen him do it to a couple lefties this year. It starts on the hip, and somehow ends up on the corner,” Tingler said. “You’re used to him cutting the ball, spinning the ball, getting the ball to break one way. Then, he’s able to run the two-seamer in and you can’t really see rotation, and it’s moving that much at 94, 95, 96 mph. Just the ability to move the ball like that . . . he’s unique.”
How’s this for a scary thought? Darvish says he wasn’t quite himself during those first eight starts. You know, that pitcher with the 2.08 ERA and 0.92 WHIP? Yeah, that wasn’t his best, he says.
“From Spring Training, something wasn’t right, and I’ve been thinking about it all,” Darvish said.
Darvish said, something clicked in his evaluation of his mechanics. He wouldn’t go into details. But Darvish said he was watching video at home, when he grabbed his glove and a ball and went through a few mock deliveries.
“Before I went to bed, everything became clear,” Darvish said. “Obviously, I was able to bring that to the mound tonight. It felt like everything came together there.”
That’s right, Darvish, an ace in the Major Leagues for nearly a decade, is still getting better at age 34. (AJ Cassavell - MLB.com - May 18, 2021)
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June 21, 2021: Yu Darvish, nine seasons into his big league career, is still punching out opposing hitters at a historic clip. Darvish recorded his 1,500th career strikeout in the sixth inning of the Padres' 6-2 victory over the Dodgers. In just 197 games, Darvish is by far the fastest pitcher in big league history to reach that milestone, eclipsing Randy Johnson, who needed 206.
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2021 Season: In the first half of the season, Darvish pitched to a 3.09 ERA, allowing 36 runs in 18 starts. However, in the second half, Darvish’s ERA soared to 6.16, allowing 42 runs in 12 starts. In other words, Darvish gave up more runs in the second half in six fewer starts than he did in the first half. Part of the reason why Darvish struggled in the second half was an injury.
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April 17, 2022: Darvish’s fourth strikeout of the day there was the 1,600th of his career. With just 1,302.1 innings pitched, Darvish is the fastest pitcher to 1,600 Ks by innings pitched. No other pitcher has ever reached that milestone in fewer than 1,350 innings.
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Sept 2, 2022: Padres right-hander Yu Darvish made history on as part of San Diego's 7-1 victory over the Dodgers.
He struck out nine batters over seven shutout innings and recorded his 3,000th career strikeout during the fifth inning. "Career" in this instance includes both his time in Major League Baseball, and Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league. Darvish is just the second pitcher to ever clear the 3,000-strikeout threshold while notching at least 1,000 strikeouts in each league: the first was Hideo Nomo, who happens to work for the Padres as a baseball operations advisor.
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2022 Season: Darvish didn’t just do it well, pitching to a 16-8 record and 3.10 ERA across 30 regular-season starts and a 2.88 ERA in four playoff games. He did it in style by maintaining a surprise element across 34 outings and some 215 innings, in the face of MIT-level analysis.
My favorite Darvish moment came in the 36-year-old right-hander’s final full inning, when he solved Bryce Harper.
Cracking a hidden code, Darvish induced two flailing swings with his two slowest pitches of the NL Championship Series, curveballs clocked at 67.4 and 68.3 mph. They skimmed the dirt as Harper swung over them, the last for strike three, freezing a 2-1 deficit that Padres hitters overcame before Harper’s two-run home run famously would eclipse two innings later.
Explaining his big 2022, Darvish said he availed himself of video tools and deep-dive stats. Applying his analysis, he dabbed more colors than on a typical pitch palette. Serial dabbling can compromise accuracy and velocity; Darvish mastered the vast array of pitches, compiling a career-best walk rate (1.7 per nine innings) and a WHIP (0.950) that even outdid Jones’ epic effort in 1976 (and every other Padres pitcher in a full season). His heavy use of cutters and sliders didn’t stop him from showing a mid-90s fastball across the seven months. The “rising” heat enhanced slow curves, split-fingered changeups and sinkers.
Showing himself the true master of Digital Baseball, the brown-striped sensei outwitted the analytically marinated Dodgers and Mets. He beat the Mets twice in the regular season. They batted .128 off him. The Dodgers go to school on pitchers every year en route to winning the West race; Darvish flunked them, recording a 2.52 ERA in four games.
It was Darvish who launched the Padres’ most successful postseason in 24 years, outpitching Mets co-ace Max Scherzer. He exited with one run allowed in seven innings. If less dominant, the outing in Queens was a useful imitation of Kevin Brown’s Game 1 road victory in the Astrodome — opposite Randy Johnson — that began the 1998 Padres’ sprint to the World Series.
Darvish allowed the Dodgers three home runs in a Divisional Playoff game. His greater mistake may have been fooling the plate ump. When an arresting two-strike curveball to Max Muncy was wrongly not ruled strike three, Muncy turned the reprieve into a home run. Freddie Freeman cashed a similar ticket. At any rate, Darvish’s three-run night matched Clayton Kershaw, setting up a bullpen game the Padres won to even the series.
Putting a lid on the rampaging Phillies, who routed good pitchers in the previous two rounds and would overwhelm Astros ace Justin Verlander in Game 1 of the World Series, Darvish allowed a pair of runs in Games 1 and 5 of the NLCS while logging seven and six innings.
If his big-at-the-time strikeout of Harper was relegated to the dustbins of baseball history, it was a memorable season nevertheless from a pitcher who showed he can conquer October. (T Krasovic - Nov 2, 2022)
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June 9, 2023: Padres ace Yu Darvish set a historic mark in career victories. The 11-year veteran hit the 100-win mark as the Padres defeated the Colorado Rockies in Denver, 9-6.
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Aug. 15, 2023: Yu Darvish created history as he became the only Japanese player in MLB history with 1,919 strikeouts. In doing so he became the all-time leader of Japanese-born pitchers with the most Ks in league history. (R. Nikhil Parshy)
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2023 Regular Season Statistics: 2.4 fWAR, 24 G, 136.1 IP, 4.56 ERA, 1.298 WHIP, 141 K, 43 BB, 18 HR, 8 HBP
Positives From This Season
There were definitely times where Yu Darvish looked like the Yu Darvish we saw a lot last season. There were plenty of outings where he went 6 or 7 innings, as the 37-year-old started 11 games where he went six or more innings and allowed two or fewer earned runs.
Negatives From This Season
He just wasn’t as consistently dominant as he and the Padres were expecting him to be fresh off of receiving what now seems like a questionable six-year extension worth north of $100 million.
Darvish allowed four or more runs in 11 outings this season, which essentially cancels out all of the great outings he had considering how disappointing the offense was this season. When he allowed more than four runs, the offense wasn’t coming back. The Padres ended up with a 9-15 record in games Darvish started, which obviously isn’t good enough when he’s supposed to be one of the aces in the rotation.
Then Darvish was dealing with a bone spur in his throwing elbow, which made him shut it down well before the season ended. To make matters worse we don’t even know if Darvish is going to need surgery or not yet to get his elbow back to where it needs to be.
The Padres still owe him $78 million over the next five seasons. There could be three starters missing from this year’s rotation next year which makes Darvish’s health even more important. (Ben Fadden@BenFaddenSD - Oct 5, 2023)
- May 19, 2023: Padres starting pitcher Yu Darvish joined some elite company by picking up his 200th career win between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball.
He becomes only the third pitcher in history to achieve this feat, joining Hiroki Kuroda, who has 203 wins, and Hideo Nomo, who has 201. (Matt Levine)
