Air was immediately let out of the balloon in Yu Darvish’s debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Leury Garcia hit the first pitch of the game off the foul pole in right field, making it a second consecutive night the Chicago White Sox opened a contest in that fashion.
The home run was one of three Darvish surrendered on the night. He was removed after six innings, as Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and head athletic trainer Nate Lucero checked on the right-hander as he warmed up for the seventh inning.
“Darvish is OK,” Roberts said postgame. “After that sixth inning, his back kind of tightened up on him. It’s more precaution. We wanted to see if he could loosen up between innings.”
Darvish said his body stiffened up and he was unable to “move very well.” He said back tightness was also an issue during last week’s start against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The removal was somewhat fitting to what had been a peculiar outing. Darvish took the mound having recorded at least three strikeouts in each of his previous 124 Major League starts. Included in that was back-to-back games with the Dodgers in which he recorded 10 strikeouts.
The 31-year-old didn’t get his first strikeout until the sixth inning. He followed it by collecting a second to strand a runner at third base and keep the Dodgers within a run of the White Sox.
“A little bit of what we saw in Arizona,” explained Roberts of Darvish’s subpar outing. “The fastball command just wasn’t quite there. The stuff was good. The damage was with the homers, just missing with the fastball, and that’s about it. The stuff is good.”
Roberts added he didn’t believe there was much reason to read into the performance, and that Darvish is expected to make his next start.
