Yu Darvish hasn’t always looked like an ace out there on the mound, but there’s one aspect of his game that has no peer. Not on the Cubs’ staff, not in the NL Central, not in Major League Baseball. Everyone knows the guy has a wide array of pitches, one that got wider when he incorporated a knuckle-curve a couple starts ago, but the true number has been somewhat apocryphal.
Some pitch-classification systems may tell you Darvish throws six or seven pitches, but that doesn’t account for subtle nuances in grip and velocity change that can muddy the results.