I’d be lying to you if I said Yu Darvish’s first start didn’t concern me. After striking out the first two batters of the game and displaying velocity between 93-95 mph, Darvish proceeded to walk seven batters and displayed lower velocity before being relieved by Steve Cishek in the 3rd inning.
Many others were equally concerned about obvious issues with Darvish’s velo and command, understandably so, but the Trackman data suggests that we can all take a deep breath. In spite of what the box score says, screams really, everything appears normal.
Indeed, Darvish’s average four-seam velocity in his first start was down about 2 mph from his usual.