As the accompanying table shows, Darvish ranks third among 115 pitchers in Major League Baseball this season in number of walks (bases on balls) given up, a terrible record.
On the other hand, he ranks third in terms of strike outs chalked up, an extremely impressive figure.
His earned run average (ERA) of 2.84 has yet to recover from the horrid 7.94 he chalked up in his very first game. He ranks 40th among the 155 pitchers, not bad, but nothing to write home to Japan about.
In Friday’s game, Darvish’s Texas Rangers beat the Los Angeles Angels 10-3. Darvish continues to be helped by the fantastic batting skills of his teammates. At the end of the first inning Friday, the Rangers led 6-0, which made things a lot easier for Darvish. Josh Hamilton of the Rangers hit two home runs Friday, making it eight home runs in the last five games for him.
When the game was over, Hamilton preferred to sing the praises of Darvish for enduring the cooling-off period of a two-hour rain delay and still come back to pitch, which is unusual. “I was really proud of him coming back out there and sticking it out,” Hamilton said. “It says a lot to his teammates about him.”
If he had not returned to the mound—as the Angels’ pitcher did not—it would have thrown the Rangers’ five-pitcher rotation out of kilter.
The Angels’ starting pitcher was C.J. Wilson, a star with the Rangers last year who decided to shift to the Angels between seasons. He was credited with the loss, much to the joy of Rangers’ fans
