Cubs' Darvish gives much stronger performance in win over Brewers
Yes, the crowd at Wrigley Field on Friday was saying "Yuuuuuuuu."
For Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish, that certainly beats the alternative, a word that rhymes with "Yuuuuuuuu" and starts with "b."
It was that kind of happy day all around for Darvish and the Cubs, who beat the Milwaukee Brewers 3-2 to improve to 13-10.
All pairs of 35,579 eyes were on Darvish, and throats were prepared to let him know how they felt either away.
After having trouble in the fifth innings of his previous 2 starts, Darvish went 6, giving up 3 hits and an unearned run in the first inning.
He said he appreciated the support.
"Regardless of where I am, outside of Chicago, too, I hear the supporting fans all the time, so that really cheers me up," he said through a translator.
Manager Joe Maddon, who had a chat with Darvish this week at Cleveland, also was heartened by the support.
"I liked the 'Yu,'" Maddon said. "I like it. I'd like to see that catch on. Big strikeout situation. 'Let's go, Yu.' That was 'Yuge.'"
Maddon did not say, "I'll be here all week and please tip your server," but he was there for Darvish in Cleveland earlier this week, and he talked with the Cubs' prized free-agent pitcher about worrying about only the pitch at hand after a pair of outings got away from Darvish.
"He mainly talked about not worrying about the previous pitch or what happened in the past," Darvish said. "Concentrate on the pitch that I'm about to throw. Basically, don't worry about what happened in the past."
There was lots more fun on this day. The Brewers scored in the first. Cubs right fielder Jason Heyward dropped leadoff man Lorenzo Cain's flyball in right field after running in for it on a sunny and windy day. Cain later scored on a sacrifice fly.
The Cubs' new 1-2 punch of Albert Almora Jr. and Javier Baez sparked a 2-run bottom half as each player extended hitting streaks to 10 games apiece.
Darvish and Almora teamed up for a routine of their own in the fifth. Darvish led off with a double to the right-field corner. He slipped going around second, or he might have had a triple. Almora bunted, but could not move Darvish, and the Cubs couldn't score.
"I told Almora that I'll be hitting a double so make sure you bunt afterward," Darvish said. "So if I had gone 3, that wouldn't have been completed. So I purposely did a double instead of a triple."
Almora corroborated that story.
"Right before he hit his double, he told me, 'Hey, I hit (a) double, you bunt me over,'" Almora said. "Honestly, I was like, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever,' thinking he wasn't going to hit a double. When he got on second base, I said, 'I got to do my job,' and I didn't. I was like, 'My bad, and you got me off-guard.' It was good for him, and it was a different Yu I saw today, and I'm excited for what's to come."
Reliever Steve Cishek found a tight strike zone in the top of the seventh, giving up 2 walks and a hit, and Brian Duensing came in and allowed a game-tying sacrifice fly. But the Cubs got the go-ahead run in the bottom half, as Brewers shortstop Eric Sogard made an error on Baez's grounder up the middle, allowing Addison Russell to score from third.
Pedro Strop got the win, with Carl Edwards Jr. working a 1-2-3 eighth and Brandon Morrow earning his sixth save.
"I was just talking that today was the first time that the ball was coming out true out of my hand rather than kind of diving away," said Morrow, a former setup man who joined the Cubs this past off-season. "Not that it's been bad, but just command has been a touch off. But today I felt really good."