Today, the Chicago Cubs reportedly came to terms on a six-year, $126 million deal with the top pitcher on the free agent market, 31-year-old righty Yu Darvish. The deal, reasonable on its face, is a tremendous move for the Cubs in so many ways, and, in my humble opinion, Cubs fans have all the reason in the world to be pretty darn happy today.
To that end, and before we get into more of the nitty gritty in the days ahead, I just wanted to have some fun tonight with some great Darvish highlights. Celebrate the newest Cub and all that.
Most recently, Cubs fans will remember – painfully – just how dominating Darvish was in the NLCS, when he held the Cubs down for 6.1 innings, and also drew a bases loaded walk:
Darvish was something of a reinvented man with the Dodgers, starting from his first game after being traded at the deadline:
One game I’ll always remember is the time four seasons ago when Darvish went into the 9th inning with a perfect game against the Astros. I remember because I happened to be at a Cubs game at that time, trying to watch the final inning of Darvish’s outing on a phone. He didn’t quite finish it out, losing the perfecto with two outs in the 9th, but the dude was so nasty:
A year later, Darvish lost another no-hitter with two outs in the 9th inning – actually, maybe this was the one I was watching … I guess maybe I do forget, but I mean, two years in a row losing it with two outs in the 9th, you kinda blend them together:
Last but not least, Darvish was one of the more famous eephus pitch throwers in baseball over the past decade – there aren’t many of them (Clayton Kershaw? Carlos Villanueva?) – and it’s just so darn much fun when it works:
The rub for Cubs fans? According to Brooks, Darvish did not throw his “slow curveball” (aka, his eephus pitch) at all in 2017 after throwing it with some consistency every now and again throughout the rest of his career. Is he done with it? Please so it ain’t so, Yu!