With six strikeouts against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday, San Diego Padres’ Yu Darvish etched his name in the record books. He became the all-time MLB strikeouts leader among players born in Japan with 1,919, passing former Los Angeles Dodgers starter Hideo Nomo.
Darvish accomplished the feat with his sixth-inning strikeout of Ramón Urías. Nomo was in attendance at Petco Park for the milestone as he is an advisor to the Padres front office.
Darvish and Nomo were already connected in baseball lore as they are the only pitchers to record 3,000 professional strikeouts, with at least 1,000 apiece in MLB and Japan.
Darvish turned 37 on Wednesday and is in the midst of his 11th MLB season. After spending seven seasons with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), he signed a six-year contract with the Texas Rangers in 2012.
The right-hander pitched in parts of five seasons with the Rangers before he was traded to the Dodgers at the 2017 non-waiver deadline. Darvish went 4-3 with a 3.44 ERA, 3.38 FIP, 1.15 WHIP and 11.1 strikeouts per nine in his only season in L.A.
During his brief time with the Dodgers, Darvish collected 61 strikeouts. Nomo finished with 1,200 strikeouts in his Dodgers career.
Darvish went on to sign a six-year contract with the Chicago Cubs but didn’t play out the entire deal as he was traded to the Padres during the 2020 offseason.
Darvish owns a 103-83 record, 3.56 ERA, 3.51 FIP, 1.14 WHIP and 10.7 strikeouts per nine in 1,615.1 innings pitched across 264 Major League starts.
Yu Darvish enjoyed time with Dodgers
Although the end of his Dodgers tenure was marred by a pair of rough outings in the 2017 World Series, Darvish called his time with the organization some of the “most important” months of his life.
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