After a day off Friday, the Chicago Cubs will look to start the season with two straight road wins against the Texas Rangers when they send Yu Darvish to the mound Saturday night to face his former club.
Darvish, now healthy after dealing with a blister on his right ring finger this spring, is poised to make his 2019 debut and his first regular-season appearance on the mound since May 20, 2018. The Cubs’ ability to regain the National League Central Division crown and potentially get back to the World Series will largely depend on the productivity — and health — of their starting pitchers.
Chicago got a stellar Opening Day outing Thursday from Jon Lester, who gave up a pair of runs on four hits and two walks in six innings, striking out three in the process. Cubs manager Joe Maddon would be thrilled to see Darvish, the hard-throwing right-hander who Texas once thought would be its ace for years, match Lester’s effort.
The Rangers eventually gave up on Darvish, sending him to the Los Angeles Dodgers at the 2017 trade deadline. Darvish struggled that postseason, and in February 2018, the Cubs outbid the Dodgers for the top pitching free agent on the market, handing him a six-year, $126 million contract to, in essence, replace the departed Jake Arrieta.
Darvish, whose win total of 16 in his rookie season with Texas has diminished in nearly every season since, was disappointing in the early portion of last season with erratic performances that rarely saw him get past the fifth inning. He earned just one win in eight starts before being lost for the season with a stress reaction on his right pitching elbow as well as a triceps strain.
Perhaps starting the season in familiar territory will give Darvish a boost as he tries to reach the lofty expectations set by his high price tag. He said he’s thankful to get his first start of the season in Texas, where he has 31 wins at Globe Life Park in Arlington, sixth-most among Rangers pitchers in the two-decade-plus history of the ballpark.
“I may have grown up in Japan, but I feel like I grew up in Texas, too,” Darvish told reporters recently. “This place is important to me. I’m so happy to be here for the opening series. … This stadium has a lot of history, and I’m so happy to throw here in the opening series.”
The Rangers will try make it a rude homecoming for Darvish. Texas seeks its first win of the season after getting blasted 12-4 by the Cubs on Thursday. Generating offense could be a recurring theme with the club, and new manager Chris Woodward quickly incited a minor controversy in the opener when he opted to sit left-hand-hitting Shin-Soo Choo, Texas’ All-Star representative last year, and use righty Hunter Pence against Cubs starter Lester.
Choo wasn’t happy with the decision.
“He wasn’t happy, which I didn’t expect him to be,” Woodward told reporters. “I expected some pushback, I wanted some pushback. It just shows, ‘I want to play every day.’ That was the response I was looking for. But he was super-respectful and professional about it.”
Choo is expected to make his 2019 debut Saturday night.