September 27-2013
It’s been a bad few weeks for both Yu Darvish and the Texas Rangers. Darvish has lost three of his last four games and the Rangers are eight games out of first place without a prayer to regain first.
The Rangers are praying for a wildcat spot in the playoffs. But as of Tuesday afternoon, they could win all their remaining six games and still lose out.
As for Darvish, in the last month, he has pitched in seven games, winning only one, losing three and not being the factor in the other two.
Darvish went from 12-5 a month ago to 13-9 now. Not a pretty picture.
He has three toted up more games in which he has struck out 10 or more batters, an astounding record. But the Rangers have lost all three of those games. As Darvish has often commented, it’s not his strikeout record that matters; it’s the win-loss columns.
Statistically, Darvish has had two horrid games in that series of seven. In each of those two games, he racked up a mere four strikeouts while giving up six walks—this from a pitcher who has 260 strikeouts this year versus 74 walks. But one-sixth of those walks came in just those two recent games.
And the only win Darvish has enjoyed in the last seven games came last Thursday in one of those six-walk, four strikeout games.
The difference was that the Texas lineup had hot bats and fired four homeruns to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 8-2.
