Yu Darvish has been pretty good this year. The 6′ 5″, 215 lb. righty from Japan, while not setting Major League Baseball afire, was 11-7 going into last night’s game with a 4.38 ERA. He’s chewed up over 130 innings so far in 2012, is fifth in the AL in strikeouts (145) and is seventh in opponent batting average (.229). Yep, Darvish has been pretty good. Just not Monday night.
The good news for the Rangers is that Darvish struck out nine Red Sox batters. That bad news was that when he wasn’t striking them out they were hitting him – hard. For Boston hitters at the top of the lineup, Darvish’s offerings became the daily double. Dustin Pedroia banged out three two-baggers, Jacoby Ellsbury smoked him for two doubles and both Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzales each got one double as Boston scored early and often (Crawford would later bang another RBI double high off the scoreboard against Texas reliever Michael Kirkman).
When the pounding stopped Darvish had given up 11 hits and six runs over 6 2/3 innings and the Sox were off and running en route to a 9-2 romp over arguably the best team in the American League.
"Ellsbury (3-5, 1 RBI, 3 runs scored), Crawford (2-4, 2 RBI, 2 runs scored), Pedroia (3-4, 1 RBI, 1 run scored) and Adrian Gonzales (3-5, 3 RBI) simply destroyed the Rangers, needing very little help from the bottom of the lineup."
Darvish was off for sure. Conversely, Aaron Cook was dead on. Over seven complete innings, Cook scattered six hits, gave up one earned run and completely tamed the Rangers’ big bats. Josh Hamilton and David Murphy each went 1-4 with limited damage. Three Texas hitters went 0-fer as Cook retired the side in order in the third, fourth and sixth.
I said, hey! you! get off of my cloud
Hey! you! get off of my cloud
Hey! you! get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around cause twos a crowd
On my cloud, baby
– Get Off Of My Cloud, The Rolling Stones