NEWSLETTER
The Brewers really, really needs wins in this series – yes, this “early” in the year – and really, really didn’t need to get owned by Yu Darvish. Alas for them.
Yu Darvish wound up going 7.0 innings last night, striking out 11 Brewers, walking only 2, and allowing his only hit of the night in the 7th inning. I won’t forget what you did to break up the no-hitter and the shutout, Justin Smoak. It looks like it was either a knuckle curve or a slider that didn’t get down:
Justin time. Smoak hit this one out of here. #ThisIsMyCrew pic.twitter.com/vLKRBLi39x
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) August 14, 2020
I mention the pitch there in part because the classifications on Darvish’s pitches last night seem to have been off. That one, at 81 mph, was classified by Statcast as a cutter, but there’s no way. Darvish plays with his cutter quite a bit, but at 81 mph, that ain’t it. Indeed, Statcast had Darvish throwing 55(!) cutters last night, ranging from 79 mph to 94 mph. Heh. That would be very weird, even for Darvish.
That is all to say, it was already a unique challenge really knowing what Darvish is throwing, because he’s got 11 different pitches and a lot of them look similar to the naked eye. Only he knows what he’s throwing some of the time … though he always knows:
Splitter
— ダルビッシュ有(Yu Darvish) (@faridyu) August 14, 2020
Anyway, whatever the pitches are classified as, Darvish had all of them working last night. His fastball(s) was sitting 96 mph, touching 98 mph. His breaking pitches were sharp, and his offspeed stuff had batters constantly out on their front foot. He got a whopping 19 whiffs on 104 pitches, and allowed only 11 balls in play in seven innings of work. That’s, what, like a ball and a half in play per inning? You just aren’t going to do damage when a guy is limiting you like that.
On the year, Darvish is now down to a 1.88 ERA over 24.0 innings, and his 2.12 FIP is 5th best in baseball. He’s already been worth 1.0 WAR, which trails only Kyle Hendricks (1.1) in the National League. Yes, the Cubs have two of the top four pitchers in baseball right now by WAR.
Enjoy the highlights from Darvish’s night, and also enjoy the fact that the Cubs couldn’t help but reference Christian Yelich’s now infamous remark that no one needs help facing Darvish:
https://twitter.com/Cubs/status/1294098525417078784
More beautiful visuals:
Yu's dominance from all angles. pic.twitter.com/fBrgZHg5RG
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) August 14, 2020
Give Victor Caratini an Oscar for Best Actor in the feature film "Frame Job." pic.twitter.com/rte24NS3j4
— Cut4 (@Cut4) August 14, 2020
