Yu Darvish on track to start Sunday against Angels

Yu Darvish was scratched from his scheduled start on Tuesday due to a stiff neck, but the Rangers won’t be without him for long.

According to Richard Durrett of ESPNDallas.com, Rangers officials said Darvish’s neck felt better after a long-toss session earlier today. He’s currently scheduled to throw off a mound tomorrow, which sets up a potential return this Sunday against Zack Greinke and the Angels. That should be a doozy of a matchup.

Darvish has compiled a 3.90 ERA through 28 starts in his first year stateside and currently ranks fourth in the American League with 214 strikeouts in 184 2/3 innings. The 26-year-old right-hander has logged seven straight quality starts and has a 1.46 ERA and a 42/8 K/BB ratio over his last five outings. Assuming he feels good enough to make the start Sunday, he’ll be in line to start Game 1 of the postseason.

It’s winner-take-all tonight. The Brewers are out for their first National League pennant in franchise history, while the Dodgers will look to secure back-to-back pennant wins for the first time since 1977-78. Taking the mound: Right-handers Jhoulys Chacín and Walker Buehler, both of whom were last seen in Game 3 of the NLCS. Chacín fired 5 1/3 shutout innings of three-hit, six-strikeout ball to secure his second win of the 2018 postseason, while Buehler took his first loss after allowing four runs and striking out eight over seven innings.

Here are the lineups for Game 7:

Dodgers

1. Joc Pederson (L) LF
2. Max Muncy (L) 1B
3. Justin Turner (R) 3B
4. Manny Machado (R) SS
5. Cody Bellinger (L) CF
6. Yasiel Puig (R) RF
7. Chris Taylor (R) 2B
8. Austin Barnes (R) C
9. Walker Buehler (R) P

David Freese will sit out of the Dodgers’ series finale, though he could be brought in later to pinch-hit. In his place, Max Muncy will shift from second to first base, with Chris Taylor covering second and Joc Pederson slotting into the left field corner and batting leadoff. Taylor and Puig have also swapped places in the batting order, with Puig getting bumped up to the no. 6 spot for Saturday’s game.

Brewers

1. Lorenzo Cain (R) CF
2. Christian Yelich (L) RF
3. Ryan Braun (R) LF
4. Travis Shaw (L) 2B
5. Jesús Aguilar (R) 1B
6. Mike Moustakas (L) 3B
7. Erik Kratz (R) C
8. Orlando Arcia (R) SS
9. Jhoulys Chacín (R) P

Not surprisingly, there are no changes on the Brewers’ end here. They’ll try to replicate yesterday’s 7-2 stunner as they face off against Walker Buehler for a World Series berth.

Game time is scheduled for 8:09 PM EDT at Miller Park.