Darvish, Hamels to give Rangers 1-2 rotation punch
Anticipation for the return of Yu Darvish has been building the past month but now is approaching its peak with the right-hander scheduled to start Saturday for the Texas Rangers for the first time since the summer of 2014.
Tickets for the game have been going fast since he completed his rehab assignment Sunday and a day later was officially named the starter for the second of three weekend games against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Globe Life Park.
Martin Perez’s return from Tommy John surgery last year didn’t receive nearly the same buzz, and not simply because there were no Japanese media swarming about.
Perez isn’t Darvish. Few in the majors are.
One who is, maybe not in how he pitches compared with Darvish but in his status as an ace, will start Friday for the Rangers.
That’s at the root of all the anticipation, the thought that Cole Hamels and Darvish will sit atop the rotation and give the Rangers one of the game’s top 1-2 pitching punches and make them harder to beat in a short series.
A short series like, oh, the World Series.
“Having Cole, especially the way he’s been pitching since he got here, and having Yu back is going to be like having two aces in our rotation,” shortstop Elvis Andrus said. “Hopefully we get a chance to be in a postseason this year, and you see that that’s when you get excited to have guys like Hamels and Darvish go back to back. That’s what you want.”
Even Hamels wanted it. As he was mulling the teams he would accept if traded by Philadelphia, the chance to eventually pitch alongside Darvish was in the positives column.
Hamels had pitched with greats with the Phillies, whose staff once included Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt. Hamels wanted that again.
“You want to have somebody that’s not only going to push you, but you can push them into rising to the occasion and trying to be better,” Hamels said. “You want to have one of those big-name guys that you can feed off of because that’s what makes you better as a whole and I think it makes it fun.”
The chance to be on the same team with a Hamels-Darvish rotation also helped sway center fielder Ian Desmond to sign with the Rangers in late February and for pitching coach Doug Brocail to jump from the Houston organization in November.
Desmond knows what it’s like to play on a team with a stacked rotation. The Washington Nationals had right-handers Max Scherzer, Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg the past two seasons and won the National League East in 2014.
Andrus remembers what it was like to be on the other side of a dominant rotation, the Phillies in 2011. The Rangers traveled to Citizen Bank Ballpark and lost to Halladay and Lee, who had spurned the Rangers for the Phillies in the off-season, before Matt Harrison beat Oswalt in the Sunday finale.
“It’s not a really good feeling,” Andrus said. “You’ve still got to go out there and perform, but it’s never a good feeling to go face those guys.”
Hamels pitched the Phillies’ next game after the Rangers left town, beating Cincinnati. The Phillies won 102 games that season en route to the NL East crown but lost the division series to St. Louis, which would go on to beat the Rangers in the World Series.
Pitching with another ace (or two or three) provided him with motivation and confidence.
“We fed off each other in everything we did,” Hamels said. “We competed with each other and pushed each other. We had a sense of pride every time we went out there to show our equals what we were all about and if we could one-up them.
“There wasn’t any stress or added pressure because even if you didn’t have your A game, you knew the next guy behind you was going to take care of business no matter what. It’s just a good feeling. We knew we had a lot more confidence to win a series.”
Darvish was asked Wednesday about his excitement level of pitching with Hamels, and took the opportunity to poke fun at Perez.
It means we’ll have two No. 1s. Not many teams have that.
Rangers DH Prince Fielder
“I’m just honored to be in the same rotation, not only with Cole Hamels but with other the guys,” Darvish said. “Except for Martin Perez, I’m excited to be in the rotation with those guys.”
As of Wednesday’s traditional between-starts news conference, Darvish said that he wasn’t yet nervous or anxious about his first start in the major leagues since Aug. 9, 2014. It will be his first home start since July 28, 2014.
Brocail said that Darvish will probably be limited to 90 pitches after throwing 87 Sunday in his fifth rehab start. The Pirates will test him far more than the San Antonio Missions, one of the game’s worst Double A teams, and the adrenaline he will have might tax him a bit more than normal.
Darvish’s innings in his comeback season will also be monitored, and his turn in the rotation might be skipped a few times to preserve him for later in the season.
The Rangers expect to need him for the postseason, when he and Hamels will form a tough 1-2 punch in a short series. That’s at the root of Darvish’s return Saturday.
“This is a guy we want in October,” Brocail said. “Coming over here knowing I had [Derek] Holland, who pitched in a World Series, and Hamels and Darvish, it’s nice to know you’re going to have a veteran staff. It was intriguing.
“That changes a lot of things. When you go in and you face a team that’s on a hot streak and you throw two Nos. 1 out there, it’s going to be nice to have them back to back.”
Jeff Wilson: 817-390-7760, @JeffWilson_FWST
This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Darvish, Hamels to give Rangers 1-2 rotation punch."