This was supposed to be an “elite” pitching matchup with Felix Hernandez going against Yu Darvish. Granted, one wouldn’t expect a pitcher with just about 10 major league starts to be “elite”, but you don’t drive a truckload of money that large up to Darvish’s house and not expect him to be called “elite” quickly enough. Darvish was out of the game early, only lasted four, while Hernandez stuck around twice as long as that.
Since there wasn’t much in the way of Rangers offense, I’ll get that out of the way first. The Rangers had just six hits overall. Two were by Ian Kinsler (both singles). Two were by Mitch Moreland (double, home run), and the others were singles by Murphy & Beltre. That’s it. If it wasn’t for the solo home run by Mitch Moreland in the eighth, we would have been shutout. They way we batting, it wouldn’t have been a surprise. That’s all there is to say about that.
Yu Darvish so far is either effectively wild, or dominating. This time though he went too far on the wild side, and got knocked out for his earliest outing. He actually didn’t allow a ton of hits – just four in his four innings. BUT.. He bloody walked six. That will kill you every time. When there’s more walks than innings pitched – no, that’s not good at all. On top of that, he threw 96 pitches in four innings. It was a bad outing. When Darvish has had mediocre outings so far, the offense has generally picked him up. Not this time.
Oh, and I’m still bloody tired of Rangers coverage calling him “King Felix”. Leave that to the Mariners guys. Don’t give the other guy respect like that – screw it, he’s the opponent. And no, I didn’t clap for Barry Bonds when he played in our park, either. I might call him King Felix if he wore a Rangers uniform, but he does not.