With full acknowledgement that a pitcher’s record is hardly reflective of his talent and performance, Yu Darvish deserved to get the win Saturday night. Not that a no-decision is a foreign concept to a pitcher who’s been tagged with neither win nor loss over his last nine starts. Besides, Darvish certainly cares about such trifles.
But sometimes even a cheap trinket like a W serves as a fitting reminder of time spent at a particularly relaxing destination. Darvish was anything but loose last year with the Cubs, whether it was because his words were being funneled through an interpreter or because “phantom” elbow issues were causing him physical discomfort.