Yu Darvish came into camp healthy and was touching 97 mph on the gun, but his velocity had been a little disappointing in the early going of the regular season. Even in Monday’s effort, he settled in at about 93 after touching a couple ticks higher to start. Then a curious thing happened: Darvish cranked it up big time in his last inning of work.
Whether it was because he was struggling with control, like in his first start, or whether Joe Maddon was protecting his starter, like in the last two, Darvish had not previously reached 80 pitches.