The Los Angeles Dodgers’ trade deadline acquisition of Yu Darvish last season looked to be a good one as he pitched like an ace for them down the stretch of the year. He then had stellar outings in both the National League Division Series and Championship Series.
But things quickly went south as Darvish got lit up in both of his World Series starts against the Houston Astros, with one of them coming in the decisive Game 7. Darvish became a free agent at the end of the season and despite talks about returning to the Dodgers, he wound up signing a six-year, $126 million deal with the Chicago Cubs.
They also signed Brandon Morrow away from the Dodgers, adding more fuel to what’s become a budding rivalry as a result of meeting in the each of the last two NLCS.
The 31-year-old is currently on the disabled list, but he still made his return to Los Angeles this week with the Dodgers hosting the Cubs in a four-game series at Dodger Stadium.
Although Darvish isn’t pitching in the series, he’s still leery of being in the dugout because of the treatment he’d get from Dodgers fans, via Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times:
“I won’t go to the front of the dugout,” he said before the game. “I’ll stay in the back or in the clubhouse where fans can’t see me.”
“When people boo you, they’re telling you, ‘We don’t like you,’” he said. “It’s not a good feeling to get that from the fans of an organization you respect so much.”
Darvish’s performance in the World Series is not something the fanbase will soon forget, so he is right to expect plenty of boos at Dodger Stadium.
It’s tough not to feel bad for Darvish as he obviously did not want to pitch poorly in the biggest two games of his life, but after signing with the Cubs he made it his main goal to defeat the Dodgers, so he had to have expected that his reception would not be warm after making comments like that.
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