Yu Darvish pens emotional blog post citing effects of fan criticism
It’s been a rough few months for Chicago Cubs starter Yu Darvish, who now will officially miss the rest of the 2018 season with an elbow injury.
Darvish initially hit the disabled list in May with triceps and elbow pain and was slowly working his way back. Finally feeling good enough to make a Triple-A rehab start last Sunday, he was pulled after one inning with recurring elbow pain. He underwent an MRI, and the team announced Tuesday that he is out for the year.
Looming over Darvish’s head all the while has been the six-year, $126 million contract he signed with the Cubs in February. Before getting injured in May he made eight starts, going 1-3 with a 4.95 ERA.
Online bashing taking a toll on Yu Darvish
Naturally, Cubs fans publicly lamented the situation, highlighting how other prominent free agents who were available before the season have fared this year, and even accused Darvish of faking his injuries. Those comments apparently made it back to Darvish, who addressed the situation in a post on his blog Wednesday.
Darvish details his exact injury timeline, then discusses his emotional state.
“Every morning when I woke up, I would pray, ‘I have to throw today, please let there be no pain.’ Those were very gloomy days,” Darvish writes. “Meanwhile, the atmosphere around me had become, ‘Is he faking an injury?’, ‘Is it a mental problem?’ Those words made it extremely difficult for me to stop and rest, and it really took a toll on me emotionally.”
Click through each image to read the whole post below, translated by Twitter user @mikaotx.
Yu Darvish’s blog entry from 8/22/18.
Translated to English by @mikaotx昨日のダルビッシュ選手のブログの内容を英訳をしてみました。 pic.twitter.com/teemhhFMj6
— mikaotx (@mikaotx) August 23, 2018
You have to commend Darvish for sharing insights into his emotions. We often forget to consider that athletes are people, too.
Emotional toll a reprisal of Yu Darvish’s post-2017 World Series state
It doesn’t help that Darvish experienced similar circumstances after his lackluster 2017 World Series performance. He even once said he feared for his children’s safety if he were to have re-signed with the Dodgers.
Similarly, fans ridiculed him on social media as he was the losing pitcher in both Games 3 and 7, and Darvish took notice – and he felt just as bad about himself as Dodger fans did.
“More than the bad things that were said about me, what I regret is that I couldn’t repay those people,” Darvish told the LA Times upon his return to Dodger Stadium in June. “More than what was actually written, what bothered me was the idea that Dodgers fans were disappointed.”
But what’s done is done – and when it comes to his future, it’s more important for Darvish to be healthy for the final five years of his deal than it is for him to pitch again in 2018.
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