Texas Rangers: Yu Darvish Last Start Before Playoffs

The Texas Rangers will send Yu Darvish out to the mound for the start of their last series in the regular season. Darvish will be taking on a Tampa Bay Ray lineup who only has 5 players that have faced him before and the best has batted .222 against him.

Obviously when a Texas Rangers 94-65 recored team takes on a Tampa Bay Rays 65-92 team then there may not be much to watch for but there is in this game. Yu Darvish has had struggles during the month of September posting a 5.16 ERA through 22.2 innings.

Darvish did have a fantastic outing in his last start that was the day after a division clinching own by the Rangers. He shut out the Oakland A’s with a stat line of 7 innings pitched, 2 hits allowed, 0 runs scored, 9 strikeouts all on an amazing 99 pitch count.

There was beginnings of concern amongst Ranger fans because of the recent starts displayed by Darvish who everyone expects to be lights out. Thoughts of Darvish hitting a wall physically because this is his first year back from Tommy John surgery. For other players who go through that treatment they usually get quite fatigued at this point but I don’t think that is the case with Darvish.

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Just like the other Ace on the team Cole Hamels, Darvish silenced those conversations with that amazing outing last week. But there is a need to keep your eyes on how he performs tonight versus a team that the Rangers SHOULD beat. We all know that the Rangers haven’t been the best against those teams that they should be but this team feels like they are on a roll and shouldn’t be taking a night off.

I think that Yu will be just fine going into the postseason and he, like Hamels, will flip the switch and arise to any occasion that he may face going forward.

This Texas Rangers team is still playing for something against the Rays, home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Just a few days ago we were discussing whether or not the Texas Rangers should shoot for the 2nd seen in the playoffs because they would face the Cleveland Indians. The Indians are dealing with injuries at what was their strongest spot, starting pitching.

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Now the Rangers have a 2 game lead over Boston and will most likely secure home field advantage and face off against the wildcard winner. Would you rather them face the wildcard team or a struggling Cleveland team?