Deconstructing Darvish

For the third time this season, Yu Darvish, last night, struck out 14 batters in a game.

For the third time this season, Yu Darvish, last night, allowed four runs in a game.

Darvish picked up a no-decision in the Rangers 5-4 loss to Arizona, keeping his record at 7-2 and dropping the Rangers record in Darvish starts to 8-3.

Darvish 2013 starts

Rk	Date		Opp	Rslt	Inngs	Dec	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	Pit	Str
1	Apr 2	@	HOU	W,7-0	GS-9	W(1-0)	8.2	1	0	0	0	14	0	0.00	111	78
2	Apr 7		LAA	W,7-3	GS-5	W(2-0)	5.0	6	3	3	4	6	0	1.98	85	50
3	Apr 12	@	SEA	L,1-3	GS-6	L(2-1)	6.0	3	3	3	1	8	0	2.75	108	61
4	Apr 19		SEA	W,7-0	GS-7	W(3-1)	7.0	3	0	0	3	10	0	2.02	111	69
5	Apr 24	@	LAA	W,11-3	GS-6	W(4-1)	6.0	3	0	0	2	11	0	1.65	100	68
6	Apr 30		CHW	W,10-6	GS-6	W(5-1)	6.0	7	4	4	3	9	1	2.33	108	64
7	May 5		BOS	W,4-3	GS-7		7.0	4	3	3	2	14	2	2.56	127	78
8	May 11	@	HOU	W,8-7	GS-7	W(6-1)	7.0	3	3	3	3	8	2	2.73	105	63
9	May 16		DET	W,10-4	GS-8	W(7-1)	8.0	7	4	4	1	6	2	2.97	130	90
10	May 21		OAK	L,0-1	GS-6	L(7-2)	6.0	5	1	1	3	5	1	2.83	101	56
11	May 27(2)	@	ARI	L,4-5	GS-8		7.2	7	4	4	0	14	1	3.03	116	83
							74.1	49	25	25	22	105	9	3.03

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/28/2013.

Darvish is a joy to watch as he has held batters to a .186 BAA this season

As you can see from the heat map above, this season, Darvish has held batters to a .147 when he has kept the ball the ball low in the strike zone.

Last night, however that didn't work as well as the D-backs went 4-17 lower in the zone with the key blow being a Didi Gregorius homer on a low cutter with one on in the 8th that tied the game at 4-4.

Darvish has allowed nine homers this season

Darvish has been incredibly effective late in his games

Split	G	IP	ER	ERA	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA
Innings 1-3	11	33.0	17	4.64	141	125	17	31	5	2	5	10	51	.248
Innings 4-6	11	32.0	6	1.69	116	105	6	14	2	1	3	10	40	.133
Innings 7-9	6	9.1	2	1.93	35	33	2	4	0	0	1	2	14	.121

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/28/2013. 

Darvish from the 6th inning on

From the 6th inning on he's held batters to a .108 average (7-for-65), one triple, two homers, and 24 whiffs and just five walks.

The Darvish Whiffs

Darvish has recorded 105 strikeouts this season and you can see they have occurred everywhere in and around the strike zone. 

• 32 have come on his fastball
• 3 on his curve
• 70 on his slider/cutter
• 87 have been swings and misses
• 20 have been on 0-2 pitches
• 32 have been on 1-2 pitches
• 35 have been on 2-2 pitches
• 18 have been on 3-2 pitches
• 18 have been called strike threes 
• 50 have been on pitches chased by batters out of the zone
• The numbers that I find most amazing - 52 strikeouts have been by lefties and 53 by righties 

There is no more exciting pitcher to watch in baseball right now

Give me one game to watch and I would rather see Yu Darvish than any other pitcher and that includes Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw, and Matt Harvey.

If Mariano Rivera does not start for the AL in the All-Star Game, I hope it's Yu Darvish so that the world can see him in action.