jerryd6818 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2020 8:50 pm
Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2020 5:51 pm
jerryd6818 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2020 5:46 pm
I don't like the way they're doing it this year but then they didn't ask me. 2020, the year that baseball went

.
Jerry, look on the bright side! The Cubs are in again after missing out last year. I’m interested in seeing how Darvish does in the playoffs without Houston cheating on him. Hopefully he’s learned how to pitch and not trying to strike out every hitter. He’s got the “stuff” to be a great pitcher.
Ken
I don't know if he's "trying" to strike out every batter but he's doing a very good job of striking out a lot of them. Here's his stats. Looks pretty good to me.
Darvish always has gotten a lot of strikeouts. I think that was part of his problem early on. When he pitched for the Rangers he was said to have some kind of “macho” complex where he thought he was so good no one should even make contact. And a lot of times that was the case. He relished in embarrassing hitters, making them look silly while striking out. But his breaking “stuff” was so good sometimes he couldn’t throw it for strikes because there was so much movement on his pitches. Once opposing hitters figured that out they laid off his breaking pitches and made him throw fastballs over the plate, rather than chasing breaking pitches. They could hit those, especially when they had the pitch count in their favor so they could “sit on” his fastball. Some sources said the Rangers traded him because he wouldn’t listen to his coaches, who wanted him to cut down his arsenal (said to be 10 or more different pitches at that time) and concentrate on his 4 best ones.
Maybe he’s a little more humble now and seems to be having good success. I always liked the guy. I was working in Phoenix when they signed him, and was able to spend some time at the Rangers’ Spring Training that year. There was a contingent of about 30 Japanese sports writers that followed Darvish everywhere. They filmed everything he did and hung boom microphones out over the field trying to catch anything he said. He took great fun in avoiding them, tricking them into thinking he was going to one practice field and getting them all to stampede there, only to turn at the last minute and go elsewhere. After which they would all scurry over there.

Watching it was comical. He was very accessible to fans though, especially kids.

Even though at that time I don’t think he knew much English.
Ken