The Stupendous Awesomeness of Yu Darvish Part 2
The pitching match-up of the year didn’t materialize as the pitcher’s duel of the year. It was actually Justin Verlander‘s worst regular season start. EVER. You can thank the Texas Rangers offense for that, particularly Mitch Moreland and, in the biggest surprise of the season, Geovany Soto, whose 3-run blast to left spelled the end of Verlander’s night.
Scintillating as the offense was, last night’s win cemented yet another incredible aspect in the game of Yu Darvish. If it had only happened once, I would shake it off as one of those things that happens. This, however, was not the first time it has happened and I have a feeling it will be integral in understanding the current and future success of the Rangers’ new ace.
Darvish did not have his best stuff last night. His fastball command was almost non-existent. Most of his other pitches were having a hard time finding the zone as well. Through the early innings, about the only pitch Darvish had working for him was his slider. Thus, it wasn’t surprising when he finally ran into trouble in the 3rd inning. Facing the bottom of the order, Darvish gave up his first hit, a home run that tied the game at 1. It was followed by a single. Then another single. A wild pitch. A sacrifice fly put the Tigers up 2-1. Miguel Cabrera doubled and Darvish intentionally walked Prince Fielder. Bases loaded. One out. A Victor Martinez sac fly on the 10th pitch of the at bat put Detroit up 3-1. Darvish was on the ropes, already at 31 pitches on the inning. It would take another five pitches before the inning ended. Darvish was already at 63 pitches in only three innings of work. It was looking like a bullpen kind of night.
Despite the Rangers heroics in the bottom of the frame, chasing Verlander with a 7-spot to take an 8-4 lead, Darvish came out in the 4th and immediately gave up his second home run of the night, this one to Jhonny Peralta, making it 8-4. That’s when it kicked in.
From that point on, Darvish retired 15 of the next 16 batters, including the last 10 Tigers in a row. Yu ended up going a career high 130 pitches over 8 innings in picking up his 7th win of the season.
Most pitchers, even quality ones, have games in which they struggle. Most of the time, it will be a struggle from beginning to end. On a rare occasion, they’ll recover and pitch effectively after their bad inning(s). This is the third similar occurrence in Darvish’s young career. On June 20, 2012 he was quickly down 2-0 in the second, expending 41 pitches to get through the two innings. From that point on, Darvish retired 18 of the last 21 Padres he faced including the last ten in a row.
On April 12th this year, the Mariners touched Darvish for 3 runs in the first inning. After the first? Fifteen of 17 Mariners were retired, including the last 12 in a row.
Less than two weeks ago, the Red Sox plated three runs in the first two innings. After a second inning home run, Darvish retired 17 of the last 20 Boston batters he faced, only one of them getting a hit.
Even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, Darvish seems to have an innate ability to figure out within a game how to proceed based on how his pitches are working or not working. In this case he switched from setting everything up through his fastball to setting it up through his slider. There are few pitchers out there who can achieve such dramatic results on in-game adjustments. I’m just glad one who can pitches for the Texas Rangers.
Related articles
- Rangers pound Verlander; Darvish now 7-1 (scores.espn.go.com)
- The Stupendous Awesomeness of Yu Darvish (40yearrangerfan.mlblogs.com)
- Yu Got Great Stats! (40yearrangerfan.mlblogs.com)
There Must Be Some Misunderstanding
Rangers Ballpark In Arlington is a mere 8-hour drive from my front door, so you’ll forgive me if I’m not seen at a Rangers home game more than a few times a year. In fact, it’s now been over a year since I saw my last Rangers game live. Yes, I sometimes feel sorry for myself but fortunately, the Astros’ games are no longer on Fox Sports Southwest, so I can pretty much watch any Rangers game on TV save for the Friday night games which are only shown locally in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
What I’m trying to say here is I won’t be at RBiA tonight to see the opener of the Texas Rangers and the defending American League Champion Detroit Tigers. I live too far away, I don’t have enough scratch to make the trip and there have been no wealthy benefactors offering to pay my way there.
Here’s what I can’t understand, though. This isn’t just the first game matching up the last two American League Champions. It is also a match-up of two of the best starting pitchers playing in the game today. Yu Darvish vs. Justin Verlander. One’s a Cy Young Award winner, the other is pitching like he wants the CYA this year.
Appointment Pitching Match-Up
As much of a Rangers fan as I am, I also know I cannot watch each and every game of the season. Besides the aforementioned Friday night games, this year I’m now forced to accept my age and retire for the night before a West Coast game can reach its conclusion. Family and work responsibilities get in the way of a number of other games. Believe it or not, sometimes I’d rather just watch something else on the tube instead of the Rangers game.
There is, however, a time when I will move heaven and earth to make sure I get to see my beloved Rangers play, and that is a game in which Yu Darvish takes the mound for Texas. It has literally been almost 20 years since a Rangers pitcher has compelled me to watch a game whenever he took the mound. The last pitcher from so long ago? Nolan Ryan.
Over the years, Texas Rangers baseball has been appointment viewing for me because of hitters like Ruben Sierra, Juan Gonzalez, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, Josh Hamilton, even Pete Incaviglia for a short while. A pitcher? Only twice. Ryan and now Darvish. Had I lived in Texas back then, perhaps Fergie Jenkins might have elicited a reaction as well.
The variety of Darvish’s pitching repertoire, the movement he has on some of his pitches and the prodigious number of strikeouts makes Darvish appointment television for me all of 400+ miles away from the site it’s occurring in. Then, when you add Justin Verlander to the equation as the opponent on the mound, this is a must-see event only slightly below a playoff game in importance.
I say this because, as of this writing, tonight’s Darvish-Verlander match-up is shaping up to have the lowest attendance of any game in the 4-game set. I know it’s the only game of the four not being played on the weekend, but for goodness sake, IT’S DARVISH AGAINST VERLANDER!!! I’d let my kids and grandkids miss school the next day to see a pitching match-up like this. If it were a day game and I were a teacher, I’d set up a TV in my classroom to let my students see it. If my wife threatened to leave me tonight, I might even consider asking her to wait a couple of hours so we can talk about it after the game (I really wouldn’t, but you get my point).
Darvish vs. Verlander and as of lunchtime today, there were almost 10,000 tickets still available for the game. Is the American Idol finale really THAT important??? I guess fans don’t care about pitching match-ups as much as they used to. What a shame, because this could be one of the better games any fan could see this season.
Related articles
- Preview: Tigers at Rangers (wyff4.com)
- PODCAST: Yu Darvish vs Justin Verlander tonight in Arlington as the Texas Rangers face the Detroit Tigers (rattleandhumsports.com)
- Darvish, Verlander Set For Showdown Thursday (dfw.cbslocal.com)
What If Hamilton, Napoli Et Al Were Still Rangers?
I’ll start this out by saying what I’ve said in these pages many a time before: I’m NOT a major proponent of WAR. I understand the concept of it, I just don’t totally agree with it because of the subjectivity of the defensive metrics. I don’t “speak” sabermetrics, but a great sabermetric argument for the way I feel was published today, as a free article, on Baseball Prospectus.
A way I can use WAR, though, would be as a comparison tool that doesn’t involve delving into a lot of different stats. I thought it would be interesting to see, at the 1/4 point of the season, how the Texas Rangers might look, record-wise, had they decided to keep everyone from last year’s Rangers team, instead of adding the pieces they added. To do that, I examined the respective WAR of the departed Rangers to their counterparts from this year’s team.
For this study, I’m using essentially the Texas Rangers team that essentially comprised the Rangers following the July 31st trading deadline.
Here’s how the former Rangers are faring so far in 2013, based on bWAR (via Baseball Reference.com):
Mike Adams (Philadelphia) 0.4
Ryan Dempster (Boston) 0.5
Scott Feldman (Chicago Cubs) 0.8
Josh Hamilton (Los Angeles Angels) -0.6
Mark Lowe (Los Angeles Angels) -0.3
Mike Napoli (Boston) 1.0
Koji Uehara (Boston) 0.5
Michael Young (Philadelphia) 0.3
Roy Oswalt, Mike Olt and Jurickson Profar have not logged any major league time yet in 2013.
Total: 2.9
Now let’s look at this year’s Texas Rangers counterparts:
Jeff Baker 0.7
Lance Berkman 0.6
Jason Frasor 0.0
Leury Garcia 0.1
Derek Lowe 0.0
Leonys Martin 0.7
Joe Ortiz 0.0
A.J. Pierzynski 0.6
Nick Tepesch 0.0
Total: 2.7
The two biggest things that jump out at me: Leonys Martin‘s defense (the subjective part) has led to a much higher WAR figure than I thought, while, of the former Rangers, Ryan Dempster and Scott Feldman have both far exceeded what I most Rangers fans would have expected of them. Overall, the former Rangers out-WAR the current Rangers, but only by .2. If you’d like to extrapolate that to an actual record, WAR suggests the Rangers would be just where they are, at 24-14 or maybe one game better at 25-13, had they just stood pat with last year’s team. Of course, they’d have that record for a significantly higher payroll than they currently have, which would be a discussion for another day.
Texas Rangers Caliente y Frio: Week 6 (Merrily We Roll Along)
Here’s a wrap-up of the week that was in Texas Rangers baseball. All stats listed are just for the previous week of play.
Rangers Record: 4-2
Overall: 24-13 (1st Place AL West) (+6)
Jalapeno Caliente (Offense):
Mitch Moreland .333/.385/.750 2 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR
Elvis Andrus .385/.448/.468
Raspa Frio (Offense):
Nelson Cruz .150/.143/.450 Despite only three hits in 20 AB’s, two of the hits left the park. Thus the high Slugging Percentage
Jalapeno Caliente (Pitching):
Derek Holland 1-0 1.29 ERA
Raspa Frio (Pitching):
Derek Lowe 2 Appearances, 6 ER in just 2 IP
Last week I said anything less than a 5-2 record would be a disappointment. The only disappointment is my addition. The Rangers only had six games scheduled in the week, not seven, so 5-2 was impossible. Instead, they went 4-2 and, incredibly, gained 3.5 games in the process on the second place A’s, who went 1-6 on the week.
You might say Texas has had an easy time of the first 37 games of the season, roughly 25% of the season to date. To date, Texas has played nine different teams. Of those nine, only three (Minnesota, Boston, Tampa Bay) start today with records at .500 or better. Of course, the Rangers are a combined 7-3 against those teams as well, so there’s that.
If storm clouds are going to begin appearing over the success that has been the Texas Rangers in 2013, they will start gathering in the next week and a half. Over the next ten days, Texas will be on the road for three games in Oakland, followed by a 7-game homestand featuring four games with the Tigers and another three games with the A’s. Oakland comes into this series under .500 themselves at 19-20. They have feasted on Houston and the Angels to a tune of 11-1. Against everyone else, the A’s are just 8-19. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is the Oakland starting pitchers, one of the best in baseball a year ago, have struggled mightily in 2013. Still, Texas knows they’ll be facing the defending AL West champions for six of the next ten games, so they won’t take them lightly.
Thursday night will be a pitching match-up just about anyone who is a baseball fan will want to see, when the homestand kicks off with Yu Darvish squaring off against Justin Verlander. Can’t wait to watch that one on TV.
Being on the road at Oakland to start the week, I think I’ll be happy satisfied if Texas goes 3-4 for the week. This will be a great week of baseball!
Taking On A Last Place Team
A weekend mismatch is at hand as the AL West leading Texas Rangers take on the cellar-swelling Houston Astros.
I should say it LOOKS like a mismatch. If I were the Rangers, though, I would approach it as anything BUT.
First, the games are on the road. Texas took two of three to open the season against Houston, but surprised many that it wasn’t three of three, let alone the Astros would win the season opener handily. Second, the Astros are coming off a near-sweep at home of the Los Angeles Angels, who may not be as good as most expected, but certainly not as bad as the team behind them in the standings. Still, the Angels lost two of the three games and only late-inning heroics kept them from heading out-of-town as the first team in 2013 swept by Houston. Third, anyone who has watched the Astros play this season says they may not have much talent, but manager Bo Porter has them hustling and playing heads-up baseball from beginning of the game to the end.
Last, but certainly not least, I looked at the pitching match-ups for this weekend and I have to applaud Porter for the way he’s looking at this series. Porter may not know the MLB rule book about pitcher substitutions, but he does know the only way to beat Texas is to attack their vulnerabilities. Thus, his first two starters this weekend. Tonight, Alexi Ogando goes for the Rangers against the Astros’ Dallas Kuechel. No, not because his first name is Dallas. Keuchel has a rather unremarkable MLB career stat line of 3-9 with a 5.22 ERA, including 0-1, 4.96 in 2013. Keuchel hasn’t started a game in 2013. Why is this a good move by Porter? Not only is Keuchel a lefthander, which the Rangers have not been handling well lately, but he also made one of his 16 starts in 2012 against Texas, where he went 5+ innings and gave up only one run.
On Saturday, Porter is following up by throwing Erik Bedard against Yu Darvish. Bedard has failed so spectacularly as a starter for the Astros, Porter moved him into the bullpen a couple weeks ago. Now, suddenly, here’s Bedard back in the rotation. Huh?
Porter knows Bedard has pretty much sucked this year: 0-2 with a 7.36 ERA. Oh yeah, except against the Rangers. Once again, Bedard is a lefty. He also faced Texas on Opening Day, throwing the last 3.1 innings to get the save in Houston’s shocking win. For his career, Bedard is a decent 5-4, 3.36 against the Rangers.
The Rangers could very well sweep the series against Houston, but I’ll grant the Astros this: their manager is putting them into the absolutely best position to win that he can.
Who Will Stay And Who Will Go?
The Rangers looked horrible against the lowly Chicago Cubs last night. Former Rangers pitcher Scott Feldman made Texas batters look silly and only the woeful Cubs bullpen prevented the Rangers from being shut out for the game.
As terrible as the Rangers looked, I can forgive them this game. Originally, the Rangers were to have Monday off, so they scheduled one of their big charity benefits for Sunday evening after the afternoon game with the Red Sox. Unfortunately, due to bad weather, a game with the Cubs got rained out a couple of weeks ago and Monday was chosen as the make-up date. Late flight out of Texas, late arrival in Chicago, tired team overall. I get that.
Nick Tepesch (Photo credit: mikelachance816)
Except for Nick Tepesch. The rookie pitcher wasn’t part of the benefit. Since he was the scheduled starter, he got a head start in going to the Windy City. He had a good night’s sleep. He took the hill and had his worst start of his young career. Tepesch gave up a 5-spot in the fourth inning, putting his team down 6-0 and the Rangers never recovered.
Rookie pitchers are going to take their lumps, even rookies like Tepesch, whose first three starts were outstanding. Now, though, he’s started getting knocked around his last couple of times out. Why is this important?
There’s a guy getting started on rehab right now in Arizona by the name of Colby Lewis. It may still be more than a month away, but Lewis will be returning soon. When he does, someone is going to have to go, and that someone will be either Tepesch or Justin Grimm. As much as you’d like to just write it off as one (or two) bad starts, if you’re a GM like Jon Daniels, you’re looking at every start a player makes. Add in that this a team with playoff aspirations and you’re faced with a real “win or go home” attitude. Tepesch needs to step it up in his next couple of starts or he’s got a date with AAA Round Rock in his future. His competition to continue in the Rangers’ rotation, Justin Grimm, now has a leg up, as he hasn’t gotten pummeled yet. If he continues to pitch well, there’s little Tepesch can do to change the decision.
Yu Got Great Stats!
Yu Darvish (Photo credit: Keith Allison)
Yu Darvish ERA by Innings, 2013:
1st: 11.57
2nd: 1.29
3rd: 0.00
4th: 0.00
5th: 1.29
6th: 3.00
7th: 0.00
8th: 0.00
9th: 0.00
Translation: Get to Darvish in the first or don’t get him at all.
Here’s one I love- Yu’s Strikeout to walk ratio in leverage situations:
Low Leverage: 7.20
Medium Leverage: 2.89
High Leverage: 10.00
Translation: When things look their worst, Darvish is at his best.
Opponents Batting Average in Yu’s first 25 pitches is a pedestrian .382. After 25 pitches? A meager .111
At his current pace, Darvish would end 2013 with 349 Strikeouts. That would be the most since Randy Johnson K’d 372 in 2001 and would rank 6th in all-time season performance. It would also be in only 33 starts. The highest K total in 33 starts or less is currently Pedro Martinez, who struck out 313 batters in 31 starts in 1999.
The best single season strikeout per 9 innings pitcher was Randy Johnson’s 13.41 in 2001. Darvish is currently on a pace of 14.2 K/9.
In just 36 starts over the course of one season and a month, Darvish is already third on the Rangers’ all-time list for games with 10+ strikeouts with 12. In second is Bobby Witt, who accomplished the feat 24 times over 10 seasons. Nolan Ryan tops the list with 34 times over a 4-year stretch.
Translation: Yu Darvish is one impressive dude.
Related articles
- Yu Darvish is striking out a lot of hitters (hardballtalk.nbcsports.com)
- The best right-hander? Darvish is the man (espn.go.com)
Texas Rangers Caliente y Frio: Week 5
Here’s a wrap-up of the week that was in Texas Rangers baseball. All stats listed are just for the previous week of play.
Rangers Record: 4-2
Overall: 20-11 (1st Place AL West) (+2.5)
Jalapeno Caliente (Offense):
Mitch Moreland .450/.542/.650 1 HR 2 RBI
Ian Kinsler .407/.429/.630 3 2B 1 HR 5 RBI
Raspa Frio (Offense):
A.J. Pierzynski .118/.167/.118 7 K in 17 AB
Jalapeno Caliente (Pitching):
Derek Holland 1-0 0.00 ERA 9 Strikeouts in 8 IP
Raspa Frio (Pitching):
Nick Tepesch 0-1, 6.75 ERA in 6.2 IP
Believe it or not, if Yu Darvish was on the list based on ERA alone, he’d be in the Frio column. Instead at best he gets an honorable mention in the Caliente column for accruing 23 more strikeouts in just 13 innings of work.
The Rangers started the week at home in a continuing funk at the plate, Tuesday’s 10 runs notwithstanding, and dropped their first series of the year when the White Sox took two of three. Pessimism reigned entering Friday night’s play. Of all the teams the Rangers had played thus far, only Friday’s opponent, the Boston Red Sox, was over .500 entering play. So, the skeptics said, here’s where the Rangers get exposed as pretenders and not contenders. All Texas did was sweep the Red Sox in convincing fashion. Derek Holland was dominant in Friday night’s shutout win, Alexi Ogando didn’t look dominant but was more than good enough in limiting Boston’s high-flying offense to a single run. Finally, on Sunday, Yu Darvish gave up two home runs early, putting the Rangers in a 3-0 hole, but shut down Boston the rest of the way, allowing Texas to tie in the 7th and walk off with the win and the sweep in the 9th.
This week, it’s back on the road with three different teams on the schedule. Today it’s a make-up game with the Chicago Cubs, facing former Ranger Scott Feldman. Tuesday through Thursday, another interleague matchup with the Milwaukee Brewers. The week closes out with three games at Minute Maid Park against the lowly Astros. Despite all seven games being on the road, considering the competition, anything worse than a 5-2 record this week would be a disappointment.
Those Damned Southpaws!
The Texas Rangers were not as good as their initial 16-8 record seemed to indicate. Conversely, the Texas Rangers are not nearly as bad as they’ve shown in their last five games, four of which were losses.
What we do know, however, is that right now, today, May 3rd, 2013, the Texas Rangers are not very good against left-handed pitching.
Regular readers of this page know this is not something new that has cropped up with the Rangers this season. This has actually been a long-term problem over the past three or four years, particularly if the lefthanded starter is either A) a finesse pitcher; B) a rookie they’ve never faced before; or C) both.
In losing their first series of the season to the Chicago White Sox, after opening the year with five series wins and three series ties, Texas has now dropped four out of their last five contests. They’ve also faced left-handed starters in four of their last six games and will face two lefties in three games when they face the Red Sox this weekend.
Out of those four left-handed starters, Texas had some success against the Twins Scott Diamond, going 12-27 with five doubles and a home run, but still managed to score only three runs off him. Since then (and including relief pitchers), the Rangers are a meager .224 against southpaws in their last 98 at bats against them with 8 walks and 23 strikeouts over 27 innings. In last night’s series finale against the Chisox, Adrian Beltre had a 2nd inning home run against emergency southpaw starter Hector Santiago, but managed only one other hit in 5.1 innings against him.
If there’s any silver lining, it could come tonight against the Red Sox. Boston is sending Felix Doubront to the mound. Yeah, he’s another southpaw, but Texas has scorched him to a career .388 batting average and 1.040 OPS, explaining Doubront’s career 10.32 ERA against the Rangers. If I were managing against the Rangers and they struggle again tonight against Doubront, I’d just continue to throw lefthanders against them until they can show any kind of success against them.
Texas Rangers Caliente y Frio: Week 4
Here’s a wrap-up of the week that was in Texas Rangers baseball. All stats listed are just for the previous week of play.
Rangers Record: 4-3
Overall: 16-9 (1st Place AL West) (+2.5)
Jalapeno Caliente (Offense):
Mitch Moreland .393/.393/.571 5 Doubles 3 RBI
Nelson Cruz .360/.467/.640 2 HR 9 RBI 5 Walks
Raspa Frio (Offense):
David Murphy .185/.241/.222
Jalapeno Caliente (Pitching):
Yu Darvish 1-0 0.00 ERA 11 Strikeouts in 6 IP
Justin Grimm 1-0 7 Shutout Innings
Raspa Frio (Pitching):
Derek Holland 0-1, 6.39 ERA in 12.2 IP
Joe Ortiz 0-1 27.00 ERA 5 ER in 1.2 IP
Considering all the games were on the road, 4-3 is an acceptable record but Rangers fans were hoping for more after starting the week 4-1 and having Derek Holland and Alexi Ogando on the bump for the last two games of the week. Sadly, the Rangers offense went south in those two games and the Twins broke close 1-0 games open in the later innings. Still, the Rangers were easily the best of the West for the week, picking up two games in the standings on the Oakland A’s and starting week 5 with a 2.5 game lead. This assures Texas of first place when April comes to a close.
This week it’s home cooking for the Rangers as they play six games against the American League’s pair of Sox: Chicago Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday followed by Boston Friday through Sunday. The highlight will be Tuesday night when Yu Darvish takes the hill for Texas. If Darvish wins the game, he will join Rick Helling, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Bibby, Aaron Sele and Bobby Witt as the only Rangers pitchers to earn five wins by April 30th. The way Darvish has been pitching, the odds are in his favor to join that elite company.
The weekend series will be interesting as well with the return of Mike Napoli and Koji Uehara to Arlington. As bad as the initial reaction to Josh Hamilton was in his first at bat in front of the DFW crowd, expect an equal but opposite reaction to Napoli’s return. He never said anything disparaging about Rangers fans and professed love for his time with the Rangers so he’ll get a warm reception his first time to the plate. As good as Uehara was in 2012 for Texas, he probably won’t elicit much of a reaction one way or another. That’s the life of a relief pitcher.
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