NEW YORK -- The start of Friday's highly anticipated matchup between the Rangers' Yu Darvish and the Yankees' Masahiro Tanaka at Yankee Stadium is being delayed due to inclement weather.
The Yankees announced an approximate start time of 8:40 p.m. ET.
Once the skies clear, Darvish and Tanaka are scheduled to face each other for the first time in the Majors. They pitched against each other four times in Japan (Nippon Professional Baseball) from 2007-11, with Darvish's club winning three of those four contests.
A 22-year-old Tanaka beat out Darvish for the Japanese equivalent of the Cy Young Award (Eiji Sawamura Award) in 2011, Darvish's final year in Japan. The two were teammates at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and on the 2009 World Baseball Classic title-winning team.