Nobody’s going to suddenly start declaring that Yu Darvish is a big-game pitcher after one or two starts.
But the Cubs’ right-hander turned in his most significant start as a Cub – if not his best sheer performance – Saturday night by throttling the Dodgers’ formidable, playoff-bound lineup for seven innings on the day Kyle Hendricks went on the injured list.
The Cubs eventually beat the Dodgers 2-1 on a ninth-inning home run by Anthony Rizzo, but it’s hard to overstate the significance of what Darvish did against his former team in his first start at Dodger Stadium since his infamous Game 7 meltdown in the 2017 World Series.