weren’t blaming him as the team racked up three errors while losing to the Los Angeles Angels by only one run, 3-2
Darvish now has three losses against seven wins. He is tied for the fourth most wins among the 276 pitchers in Major League Baseball with more than 20 innings pitched so far this year. So, no one is complaining.
But the Rangers aren’t happy with themselves. Satur-day’s loss was their fourth in a row. Normally, Darvish benefits from tremendous hitting and fielding from his teammates. But everything went wrong Saturday with three fielding errors.
They had a chance to win in the ninth inning. The Rangers had the bases loaded with two outs and John Hamilton, one of the team’s top hitters, came up to bat. But he struck out. Overall, the Rangers had players in scoring position eight times during the game yet failed to score.
Coach Ron Washington said of Darvish, “He pitched a heckuva game. I wish we could have supported him. We didn’t make the plays.”
Still, Texas leads the 15 teams in the American League with a .585 winning percentage.
Darvish remains plagued by a propensity to walk players, although he is still a strikeout king. Ranking 40th in number of innings pitched among those 276 pitchers with at least 20 innings so far this year, Darvish ranks ninth in total strikeouts, which is superb, but fourth in numbers of bases on balls (walks), which is horrible. His earned run average of 3.21 ranks 99th and is just average; it is far from his 1.99 career average in Japan.
But he is tied for fourth place among those 276 pitchers in terms of number of wins—and that is what really matters.
