Former Rangers ace Yu Darvish earns first post-season win for Dodgers

Texas Rangers fans, prepare yourself. It could be a couple of weeks of ‘if onlys’ and ‘woulda shouldas.’

Former Rangers ace Yu Darvish won his first-career post-season game late Monday night, helping the Los Angeles Dodgers advance to the NLCS with a sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Darvish struck out seven and allowed one run on two hits over five innings.

The right-hander was traded to the Dodgers on July 31 for three prospects.

He was 0-2 in the post-season for Texas, including a loss in Game 2 of the ALDS a year ago against the Toronto Blue Jays. He allowed five runs on five hits, including four home runs, in five innings in a game that put the Rangers in an 0-2 series hole.

The Dodgers play the winner between the Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals. The Cubs lead the series 2-1 with Game 4 beginning at 3:38 p.m. Tuesday at Wrigley Field. The best-of-seven NLCS starts Saturday at Dodgers Stadium.

Darvish will be a free agent after the season, which is one of the reasons the Rangers were open to trading him. In his last three regular-season starts for the Dodgers, Darvish allowed one run with 21 strikeouts and one walk in  19 1/3 innings.

This story was originally published October 10, 2017 at 10:15 AM with the headline "Former Rangers ace Yu Darvish earns first post-season win for Dodgers."