Yu Darvish is known to put pressure on himself and, since he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, there is a sense around that team that he wants to prove himself to his new teammates. The perception in the room is that he wants to demonstrate that he was a worthy addition as a finishing piece to a championship-caliber team. Human nature.
As if all of that isn’t enough: Darvish has many tens of millions of dollars on the line as a potential free agent this fall, and the 2017 season hasn’t gone according to plan for him.