Yu Darvish needs to lean on his teammates for support if he wants to have any success in Chicago.
When the Cubs handed Yu Darvish a six-year, $126 million deal this offseason they thought they’d acquired a true ace. Unfortunately, his start to his Cubs career has been a disappointment for both the Japanese hurler and the club that signed him.
Darvish’s rocky start has everyone associated with the Cubs searching for answers. He’s failed to get out of the fifth inning in all but one of his four starts for the season. If you ask Darvish, it’s a simple question of pitch selection. He believes he needs to use more off speed pitches to get through the fifth inning.
His catcher, Wilson Contreras has a very different opinion of what’s going on with Darvish though. He believes his pitcher relaxes too much when he gets the first two outs in an inning. Darvish flatly rejects Contreras’ theory though. He insists that he approaches every hitter the same regardless of the situation in the game.
The disagreement between Darvish and Contreras is a real troubling sign. It’s clear proof that Darvish isn’t comfortable with his teammates yet. That, more than anything else, could be the reason he’s finding his transition to Chicago so challenging.
It’s not as if he suddenly forgot how to pitch once he signed with the Cubs. When you watch him throw the ball it’s clear he still has good stuff. In fact, he doesn’t show much stress at all trying to get through the first four innings of games.
Most of his trouble pops up in the fifth inning. That shows it’s much more likely to be a mental issue than a physical malady. You can’t expect Darvish to feel good mentally if he’s actively engaged in disagreements with his teammates in the media.
The best thing Darvish can do to get things back on track is to engender some trust in the clubhouse. He can’t become everyone’s best friend at once, but his performance would certainly improve if he felt like he had more allies out there on the diamond.
Some might think his relationship with Contreras is an outlier but that doesn’t make any real sense. If anything, his relationship with his catcher should be better than his bonds with the rest of his teammates.
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Yu Darvish’s struggles as a Cub are likely a combination of several factors, but his lack of comfort with his teammates is definitely one of them. Fortunately for everyone involved, it should also be a problem that’s relatively easy to fix.