Yu Darvish was flirting with history for a little while tonight, but he ended up notching his fourth 14-strikeout game of the season in a 7-1 win over the Diamondbacks.
In a thoroughly-dominating performance, Darvish gave up just five hits and no walks over seven scoreless innings for his 10th victory of the season. He had six strikeouts through the first two innings and struck out a pair in each of the next the four frames.
Our own Matthew Pouliot notes that Darvish has four of the six 14-strikeout games in MLB this season, with Chris Sale and Anibal Sanchez being the only others. Among Darvish’s 14-strikeout games, he has three where he hasn’t issued a walk. As Adam J. Norris of Lone Star Ball points out, that’s pretty darn rare for a career, let alone a single season.
Darvish is the seventh pitcher in history with at least four 14-strikeout games in a season, joining Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Sam McDowell, and Mark Langston. He currently leads the majors with 186 strikeouts in 138 2/3 innings and has reached double-digits in eight of his 21 starts.
