Pretty much every game from here on out for the Texas Rangers is a must-win game, as they can afford to drop maybe one game the rest of the way if they plan to play in the postseason, or even a play-in game to get into the one-game Wild Card playoff.
In a must-win game, there might not be another matchup you'd want more than Yu Darvish against the lowly Houston Astros.
Darvish, who leads the world with 260 strikeouts this season to go with his 2.81 ERA and 1.06 WHIP, is going to be in the AL Cy Young discussion, though he won't win it. He's absolutely owned the Houston Astros this year, just look at the results.
In his first start of the season, Darvish was one out away from a perfect game. In his last start against the Astros, he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before finishing after eight innings while allowing one hit.
There was one bad start, back in July when he gave up five runs in six innings, but Darvish is in a nice stretch right now after losing two straight 1-0 decisions and picking up a win in Tampa last week despite having far from his best stuff.
In their last seven games, Rangers starting pitchers are 4-0 with a 1.38 ERA and now it's Darvish's turn to keep up the string of nice outings. And you can bet your bottom dollar there's not a team he'd rather be facing to get that done.
