Darvish’s Texas Rangers faced the San Diego Padres in a spring training matchup. The Padres could not score off Darvish.
His 36-pitch performance was broadcast live to Japan by four television stations. Japan is even more taken by Darvish’s arrival in US baseball than Texas fans who see in Darvish their best hopes to finally win a World Series after winning the American League pennant but losing the Series in each of the last two years.
John Blake, head of communications for the Rangers, said 15 to 18 Japanese newspapers sent reporters to Arizona last week for Darvish’s first appearance on the mound, even though the game counted for nothing. “We had half that many for the World Series,” Blake said.
Darvish’s fastball was clocked at 95 miles an hour last week.
But Darvish didn’t just pitch. He proved adept at fielding as well. He pulled in a high hopper hit by the Padres’ James Darnell and then threw out Will Venable at the plate.
Darvish gave up two hits in his two innings, both doubles. One almost left the yard, but Darvish dismissed talk that it would have been a home run in a Japanese ballpark, saying the wind and dry air of Arizona let the ball fly farther. “I didn’t really feel like he got me,” Darvish said.
Darvish, 25, is billed as a Japanese player in the United States. But almost all US news coverage of him repeats that his father is Iranian and his mother Japanese.
The Rangers committed $111 million to get Darvish—$51 million was paid to his old Japanese team to acquire him and Darvish has a six-year contract for $10 million a year.
