September 12-14
Yu Darvish is finished pitching for this season, due to a combination of elbow pain and the collapse of his team, the Texas Rangers, which would rather have him fit to pitch the first game next season than lame for the last game this season.
The Rangers have not formally announced that Darvish is being benched, but MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan, who reports daily on the team, says the decision has been made to pull him. Darvish normally pitches every fifth game, but he hasn’t pitched in a month now.
The Rangers now have the worst record this year of any of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball. In the remaining few weeks left in the season, it might manage to rise to next-to-worst, but no one is paying any attention.
Darvish, 28, is not at fault. In fact, he’s just about the only one on the team at whose feet some fault cannot be placed.
The Rangers have used 40 pitchers this year, though half of them have pitched 10 or fewer innings. The team has relied primarily on six pitchers, each of whom has pitched more 70 innings. Darvish has pitched more innings, 144.1, than anyone else. Of those six pitchers, only Darvish has a winning record, having racked up 10 wins and seven losses. That means Dar-vish accounts for almost 20 percent of all of the Rangers 53 wins to date.
Of the total of 40 pitchers, only five apart from Darvish have winning records—and each of them has only one win more than his losses.
Darvish’s Earned Run Average (ERA) of 3.06 is nothing stupendous—but it is the best of those six principal pitchers.
He finishes the season with his propensity for pitching strikes intact. He has averaged 11.35 strikes per nine innings pitched this year. The second best pitcher in all of Major League Baseball is well behind at 10.74.
The big problem for Texas this year has been injuries. Darvish is just one of 14 Rangers currently on the disabled list.
Darvish hasn’t played a game since August 9. And since last Wednesday, he has had his pay docked each day. His contract provides for an $800,000 bonus that allows him to be on the Disabled List for 30 days. Beginning with the 31st day—last Wednesday—the Rangers have been deducting $5,228.75 each day from the bonus and Darvish figures to lose $135,947.50 by season’s end.
Meanwhile, Texas Manager Ron Washington, 62, resigned suddenly last week, saying he needed to attend to “an off-the-field personal matter” that was not further described.
Darvish said he was stunned. “Since I joined this team, he has always been great to me. He is a great manager and a wonderful individual.”
Washington led the team for eight seasons, including three playoff appearances and back-to-back American League championships just before Darvish arrived. In 2011, the Rangers came within one strike of beating the St. Louis Cardinals and capturing the World Series. The team hoped that with Darvish they would return to the World Series and win it.
