What on earth is going on? I saw this Twitter thread and almost fainted. I had extremely low expectations for this off-season but so far it’s blown the last few completely out of the water. This video was tweeted out by Bleacher Nation:
The video was posted because of a comment that Darvish made to the Los Angeles Times:
“Darvish recalled a game this season in which he stepped off the mound multiple times because he noticed something unusual. Batters typically have their eyes set on the pitcher. In this particular game, he observed they were looking into left-center field.”
See full article: https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2019-11-15/yu-darvish-astros-cheating-dodgers
The video insinuates that Christian Yelich was looking into left center field for a sign indicating the next pitch. After a fan challenged the claim, stating that Yelich looked away only after Yu Darvish stepped off the mound, Darvish replied with this:
Now, I can see this interpreted this as Darvish saying he thought something was going on, because Yelich looked towards the outfield and Darvish says that’s the reason he steps off. But he doesn’t explicitly accuse anyone of cheating. He even says that he didn’t know what was going on. In addition, he even followed up with this beautifully worded sentence:
Regardless, does that tweet warrant this response from Yelich?
I don’t think so. I had to read it four times to make sure it was real. Seems like an overreaction by Yelich, which has even more fans thinking something suspicious is going on with the Brewers. Suspicions regarding the Brewers cheating was suggested by Jeff Jones on Twitter, (he also mentions Rangers).
Why respond with such hostility if there is nothing to cover up? Yelich could’ve just said something as simple as “there was nothing going on, I just looked to my side”. And that would’ve been it. He also could’ve just ignored it altogether, especially considering there have been allegations against the Brewers now. Instead, his uncalled for response made this tweet exchange go viral.
Anyways, Darvish took it like a champ, and a few other players tweeted him, including Josh Donaldson:
What I found funny about this is if you look at Donaldson’s career numbers off of Darvish, it looks like he could actually use some help. In 22 at-bats (which is not a lot), Donalson has hit .182/.308/.182 (AVG/OBP/SLG) vs Darvish.
Darvish ended up following up with Yelich’s response, tweeting out this:
And it doesn’t get classier or more innocent than that.