Don't worry folks, the Texas Rangers insist there is nothing wrong with prized rookie pitching phenom Yu Darvish, and there's no reason not to believe them.
The Rangers have made every effort to keep tabs on Darvish's workload over the first half of his first season pitching in the United States after years of dominance in Japan. They've skipped starts, given extra days of rest, etc. They were tinkering with the idea of giving him an extra day again this weekend, moving him from Friday to Saturday before the Rangers hit the all-star break after Sunday's series finale against the Minnesota Twins.
Instead, Darvish will get a lot of days of rest as he will be completely skipped over the weekend and won't start again until after the all-star break, presumably in that first series in Seattle.
The Rangers will give Triple-A call-up Martin Perez his second career start on Friday after he picked up a win in his starting debut last weekend. Derek Holland will return from the disabled list, where he's been since early June, on Saturday and Roy Oswalt will look to bounce back from a nightmare of a start on Tuesday when he was bombed by the Chicago White Sox one start after being equally bombed by the Detroit Tigers even though he was able to pick up a win.
The Rangers are clearly being really careful with Darvish, and it's understandable. The Rangers want Darvish and the rest of their starters to be fully fresh come October and when you have the obvious starting pitching depth the Rangers have shown so far, why not give him nearly two weeks between outings (assuming he doesn't pitch in the All-Star Game Tuesday).
