Quick, think of your favorite video game character to play as. I’d guess there are two main attributes that make that character your favorite: they have cool skills, and they have lots of those cool skills.
Yu Darvish is baseball’s equivalent of the ideal video game character.
When Darvish takes the mound, the possibilities are endless. He’s thrown up to 10 different pitches in his career. He throws two different curveballs: a fast curveball and a slow curveball, which vary greatly in velocity; the fast curveball averages around 80mph, while the slow curveball averages around 71mph.
And he throws about every other pitch you’ve ever heard of (four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, cutter, changeup, sweeper, splitter, knuckle curve) and even some that you haven’t (a “supreme pitch”). He decides whether to pitch out of the windup and stretch kind of whenever he wants, and messes with the timing of his delivery plenty as well.
He’s also known to be very improvisational, sometimes throwing pitches he just invented or just started learning immediately in games. If there’s anyone who’s immune to the scouting report, it’s Darvish.
And he’s made an incredible career off of being unpredictable.
Before he ever set foot on an MLB mound, Darvish was one of the best pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball history. His seven-year Japanese career saw him post 93 wins, a pitcher of the year award in 2007 and a Japan series title in 2006.
But despite already having a full career many players would dream of, Darvish has gone to another level since coming to the United States. He’s made five all-star appearances and his 2,007 strikeouts are the most by any Japanese-born pitcher, more than legends like Hideo Nomo, Mashiaro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda and the already-legendary Shohei Ohtani. He also has the tied-most combined wins among pitchers who have played in both NPB and MLB with 203. His 204th win will put him past Kuroda and give him sole possession of first place.
He’s also won two World Baseball classic titles for Samurai Japan. He’s a national hero; the guy that Shohei idolized when he was growing up. He’s built that entire career by being unapologetically insane.
Because building the kind of arsenal he has is great, in theory. In a video game world, where building these things is easy.
But building even one elite, MLB ready pitch takes intense discipline. Constantly tinkering with new pitches means having less of the valuable time needed to master your old ones. Constantly messing with timing can mess up the hitter but also the pitcher himself. So much of pitching is built on repetition and Darvish has built his career off of hardly ever repeating himself. It’s madness.
But some of the best artists are the ones who are a little bit insane.
And here, in the 2024 postseason, the insane artist faces a legacy-defining commission. If the Padres make a deep playoff run, he is going to be at a focal point, because the best thing San Diego has going for it is a deep starting rotation. At 36 years of age, that role makes little sense for someone past his prime, and rising to the occasion against the Dodgers was going to take one of the best performances of Darvish’s career.
And yet, there Darvish was in L.A. on Sunday night, spinning seven strong innings while only surrendering one run and three hits on only 82 pitches. He navigated a weird delay and the heart of the Dodger lineup with ease. Mookie Betts and Ohtani, both career sub .200 hitters against Darvish, both went hitless on the night as well.
With art, possibilities stretch as widely as the imagination. So, with age and injury history thrown out the window, is there truly anything Darvish can’t do this postseason? He already seems to have given his answer: no.