Cubs would rather put Yu Darvish on DL than watch him pitch

The Chicago Cubs placed Yu Darvish on the 10-day disabled list over the flu. You don’t see that as a reason for the trip to the DL everyday.

Often times, when you see a pitcher go on the DL, it’s due to something with their arm or a precaution to an injury. Well, today the Chicago Cubs put Yu Darvish on the DL with parainfluenza virus.

That’s a fancy way for saying the flu. Yes, the Cubs really put Darvish on the shelf for 10 days over the flu.

Chicago would really rather put Darvish on the DL for 10 days than watch him pitch, and I’m not so sure I disagree with their reasoning here. In six starts, Darvish is a 0-3 with a 6.00 ERA. He’s gotten through six innings of work twice, and every other start he’s failed to get through five innings.

Unfortunately for the Cubbies, this is the first year of a newly signed six-year, $126 million contract. He makes $25 million this year but averages $21 million over his six-year deal.

Obviously, the Cubs had higher hopes for Darvish despite a poor year in 2017. Many teams were skeptical of signing Darvish. He didn’t sign with the Cubs until Feb. 10, finally ending an uncertain offseason.

Through the first six starts of the Darvish era in Chicago, it’s been pretty underwhelming. The idea here is that Yu is able to get healthy by drinking fluids and sitting on the couch for a few days, just like any other person who has had the flu does, and then hopefully he comes back strong.

His biggest issue is the long ball. He’s allowed six homers already, which puts him on a pace of one home run per start. last year, in a down year, he averaged 0.87 home runs per outing.

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With Kyle Hendricks, Jon Lester and Jose Quintana in the rotation, the Cubs can afford to have Darvish struggling early on. But if they want to make noise come October, the Cubs are going to need Darvish to start performing to the stats on the back of his baseball card.