Yu Darvish did not start out this game well, not at all. Two walks, a hit batter and a couple of singles produced a run in the first inning, a frame in which Darvish threw 39 pitches. You could be forgiven if you thought, “Here we go again.”
But after that, Darvish turned into the dominant pitcher the Cubs thought they were getting this season. He threw just 55 more pitches from the second through the sixth inning, allowed no more hits and just three further baserunners, two on walks. He ended up with a solid six-inning outing and Cubs batters smashed three home runs, resulting in a 6-1 victory over the Reds that gave the Cubs the series three games to one, and a winning road trip, four wins to two losses.