Yu Darvish

Yu Darvish (ダルビッシュ 有, Darubisshu Yū, born 16 August 1986) is a Japanese professional baseball starting pitcher who is a free agent. Darvish has pitched in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers and in Nippon Professional Baseball for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. In international play, Darvish pitched in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic as a member of the Japanese national team. He was considered by many to be the best pitcher in Japanese professional baseball prior to his arrival in Major League Baseball in 2012. In his first MLB season, Darvish finished third in the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year balloting. The next season, he finished second in the AL Cy Young Award vote as he led the Major Leagues in strikeouts with 277 and finished fourth in the AL in earned run average (ERA) at 2.83. On 6 April 2014, Darvish reached the 500 strikeout mark in fewer innings pitched than any starting pitcher in MLB history. 2Early life Darvish was born Farid Yu Darvishsefat (ダルビッシュ・セファット・ファリード・有) in Habikino, Osaka, to an Iranian father, Farsad Darvishsefat, and a Japanese mother, Ikuyo. His father played for the Florida State University soccer team. His grandfather owned a travel agency in Iran, and decided to send his son Farsad to the United States in 1977 to attend high school in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he also raced competitively in motocros