Watch Yu Darvish's one-hitter in five minutes
Watch Yu Darvish's one-hitter in five minutes
Out on a Friday night? Missed Yu Darvish's no-hit bid while you were spending time with friends and/or loved ones? Have no fear, for the video above contains Darvish's absolute gem of a ballgame distilled down to five strikeout-filled minutes. And if that's too long for you (I'm not judging. I understand that you're very, very busy), we have you covered below -- thanks to the power of the GIF!
As one would expect, Darvish was absolutely dealing in this one, striking out 12 Red Sox hitters with a mixture of fastballs, curves, sliders, Jedi mind tricks and old fashioned chutzpah:
Like this 96 mph fastball against Xander Bogaerts:
Or this other fastball that made Mike Napoli look silly:
Or this slider to end the eighth inning against Jackie Bradley Jr.:
There was some controversy in this one, though. With two outs in the seventh inning, David Ortiz skied a pop fly to shallow right field, the ball dropping between Rougned Odor, in his second career start, and Alex Rios. The pop-up was ruled an error, so while Darvish's perfect game bid was over, the no-hitter was still alive.
And it looked like Darvish just might do it. Despite a rapidly escalating pitch count, Darvish started off the ninth inning in style, getting Dustin Pedroia to ground out (with Pedroia and Prince Fielder taking a break from the action to try out for the high school football team):
Followed by a strikeout of Shane Victorino on another filthy slider:
But with one out left, David Ortiz hit a single through the shift, ending Darvish's no-hitter and his night:
But one-hitter or no-hitter, there was no denying that Darvish pitched one hell of a ballgame and plenty of fans in Arlington got to go home happy:
Darvish went home pretty happy too. In the postgame interview, he acknowledged his disappointment, but said he still felt positive:
"This is the second time I've experienced this," the righty said. "But if I keep pitching like this, someday I'll get it."