In his second spring training start, Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish experienced the ups and down of pitching in the major leagues.
The rookie from Japan was wild against the Cleveland Indians in his three innings pitched last Tuesday against the Indians. He allowed two earned runs on three hits and walked four. Darvish admitted not having control of his fastball. The damage could have been worse after Darvish walked the first two batters in the game, but Rangers catcher Yorvit Torrealba threw out both trying to steal second base.
Every pitcher is going to have control issues at some point during the season unless you are named Roy Halladay, but should it be a concern he has allowed five hits in only five innings pitched and allowing a .294 opponent batting average? It is too early in spring training to look into statistics, but what is concerning about these first two outings is that his three-quarter arm slot motion or his set of pitches are not confusing hitters. Darvish came to the major leagues after posting a 1.44 ERA in the Pacific League and baffling hitters with 276/36 K/BB ratio but we have not seen that yet in the major leagues.
After Tuesday’s game Indians’ Jason Kipnis was quoted by saying Darvish has good stuff with life on his fastball and comfortable on the mound, so we are possibly in-store to see dominating performances from the $60 million dollar rookie pitcher and we just have to be patient for the pitcher to get adapted to American-style baseball. We can all hope he is the next Halladay and not Dice-K
