Japanese major leaguer Darvish Yu (36, San Diego Padres) will attempt to become the first Asian pitcher to win 100 games in 18 years.
Darvish will take the mound for the 2023 Major League Baseball (MLB) Colorado Rockies at Coors Field in Denver, Colorado, USA, at 9:40 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
Darvish reached 99 career wins (79) in his last start on April 4 against the Chicago White Sox.
If Darvish gets the win against Colorado on Tuesday, he will become the third Asian pitcher to reach 100 wins, joining Japanese pitchers Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park.
Asian 100-win pitchers are a dying breed. Nomo became the first Asian pitcher to reach the 100-win plateau on April 21, 2003, against the San Francisco Giants while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Chan Ho Park reached the milestone on June 5, 2005, against the Kansas City Royals while still with the Texas Rangers.
Chan Ho Park holds the record for the most wins by an Asian in MLB with 124. Nomo has 123 wins.
Two other Japanese players, Hiroki 메이저사이트 Kuroda (retired) with 79 wins and Masahiro Tanaka (Rakuten Golden Eagles) with 78 wins, failed to reach 100 MLB wins after returning to Japan. Ryu Hyun-jin (Toronto Blue Jays), who is preparing to return from elbow surgery, has 75 wins (45 losses).
Darvish was born to an Iranian father and a Japanese mother.
He was 93-38 with a 1.99 ERA for the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball Organization from 2005 to 2011 before reaching the big leagues via a closed competitive bidding system (posting system). Texas paid $117 million to acquire Darvish.
He went 16-9 with a 3.90 ERA in his first MLB season and led the American League in strikeouts the following year, finishing second in the Cy Young Award voting.
Darvish has been healthy of late, reaching the plate four years in a row. Last year, he went 16-8 with a 3.10 ERA. San Diego guaranteed him a contract through age 40.
Earlier this year, Darvish signed a six-year, $108 million extension with San Diego. He is 4-4 with a 4.10 ERA this season.
Colorado, who Darvish faces in his quest for 100 wins, is 26-38 with a .406 winning percentage and is in last place in the National League West. They are 2-8 in their last 10 games. Their team batting average is .259, which ranks ninth in the MLB. The only catch is that the game will be played at Coors Field, which sits at 10,000 feet above sea level and is known as the “graveyard of pitchers.
