LOS ANGELES — Asked about the prospect of facing Shohei Ohtani during the superstar’s heater, Yu Darvish deflected.
He was preparing to face all nine Dodgers hitters, not just the greatest hitter on the planet.
It was a sound strategy.
The Padres’ 38-year-old veteran spun seven strong innings in the Padres’ 10-2 win on Sunday at Dodger Stadium, retiring Ohtani all three times he faced him.
The key: Nobody was on base for any of those meetings.
“I think it was important,” Darvish said through interpreter Shingo Horie. “I felt like I had really good concentration on the mound, just going batter by batter, and just great focus. And I did get in trouble a little bit in the second inning, but other than that, I thought it was a pretty good night.”
Indeed.
Darvish scattered three hits and two walks in joining Kevin Brown as the only Padres pitchers with three seven-inning postseason starts on his resume. This one lowered Darvish’s ERA to 2.53 in Padres playoff games, as the one-run, seven-inning effort matched what he did in Game 1 in the NL wild-card series in Queens in 2022 to get the Padres started on their push that year into the NLCS.
Darvish struck out just three batters on Sunday, but the first was a biggie: Ohtani, flailing on a low-and-away slider to keep momentum on the Padres’ side after Fernando Tatis Jr.’s first-inning home run.
The Dodgers plated a run in the second inning on Gavin Lux’s sacrifice fly to center with the bases loaded, but that inning ending with eight-hole hitter Tommy Edman lining into a double play at first base with runners on first and second.
The next inning, Miguel Rojas flied out to center and Ohtani grounded out to second.
In the fifth, Rojas flied out to center to end the inning with a runner on second, leaving Ohtani to lead off the sixth inning without the ability to do any significant damage, as he did with his three-run homer in Game 1.
A tapper back to the mound the next inning dropped Ohtani to 1-for-8 with two strikeouts in head-to-head matchups with Darvish, whom he calls his childhood hero.
In all, Darvish showed Ohtani six different pitches over 15 pitches spread between the three plate appearances.
Only one offering was a true four-seam fastball. Darvish threw four curveballs and four splitters.
“I was trying to see how he reacted to some of the pitches that I was throwing,” Darvish said. “And on top of that, I was trying to keep him off balance by holding a little bit longer, stuff like that, so that anything that you can do to keep him off balance.
“I think it worked pretty well tonight.”
Added Padres manager Mike Shildt: “Pitching is a disruption of hitter’s balance and timing … (and) Yu is really good at that. The back and forth is the timing. The in and out is the balance. And he was able to do that masterfully tonight against the whole lineup.”
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