Facing the Detroit Tigers for the third time, Darvish found himself deep in a hole with the very first batter who chalked up three balls and no strikes. But then Darvish struck him out!
It was the exact same story with the second batter. Darvish threw three balls—and then three strikes.
In the fourth inning, Darvish continued to play cardiac ball. He had two men on base with no outs. But he pitched his way out of that hole without Detroit getting a run.
In the end, the Texas Rangers won 8-3 and Darvish now has 12 wins and eight losses.
Darvish is still a strikeout king—but he is also still a walk king. In Sunday’s game, he walked five and struck out eight.
The bad news is that Darvish is not clearly improving. When one looks at his earned run average (ERA), the most watched statistic for pitchers, he is actually getting worse.
In Japan, his career ERA was 1.99. Since coming to the States, his ERA was 2.18 in April, 4.50 in May, 4.15 in June, 5.74 in July and it is 7.85 so far in August.