In Darvish’s first start against the St. Louis Cardinals on August 18, he executed a simple plan: a heavy dosage of cutters with the rest of his repertoire mixed in gradually.

Flash forward to Friday night’s game against the Redbirds and Darvish took a slower route to success he hadn’t shown any team this season. His 12 curveballs Friday reached a new season high, surpassing the six he threw on the 13th of August. The pitch averaged 72.5 mph, the slowest in his repertoire by far and is complemented by a harder, spike-grip knuckle curveball. 

Beyond his curveball, Darvish didn’t throw any one pitch more than 29 times, also an anomaly compared to the rest of his starts this season where his cutter has routinely led his repertoire. In every start this season, Darvish has thrown his cutter 38 times or more. Tonight’s usage became a season low, yet the deviation seemed to only affect his opponent and not the National League ERA leader.

“He knows that the difference in velocity between his slider and curveball is the key,” Marquee Sports Network analyst Rick Sutcliffe said on Cubs Postgame Live!

Darvish said after Friday’s start that one of the keys this season is his ability to deal with only one or two issues on the mound in a given start this season. In 2018 and 2019, he was dealing with three or four issues in every outing, shrinking his repertoire. His four-seam fastball effectiveness to right-handed hitters was an issue he cited that he dealt with Friday, but he was able to circumvent the problem and allow only 1 hit. 

“I have an issue each start,” Darvish said. “I missed a lot of four-seam against righties [tonight]… but I have a lot of kinds of cutters, like three or four kinds, and two kinds of sliders, three kinds of curveballs. So I can replace.” 

Darvish’s explanation of his own repertoire brings into question once again just how many kinds of pitches he does throw (more on that here). Public statistics sites generally place him around 11 or 12. But if we factor in three cutter variations and two slider variations, that number creeps up to an unconscious 15 pitches. 

That diversity of his repertoire allows him to face a Cardinals team twice in a matter of weeks and deploy a completely different approach. Of late, Darvish had been favoring his slider. If Cardinals hitters expected that pitch stepping into the box Friday, they were sorely disappointed as the Cubs’ ace only threw the pitch 22 times, the lowest of his previous three outings.

After Friday’s stellar performance, his case has strengthened to win his first Cy Young Award at the age of 34.

“I don’t want to think about that,” Darvish said. “I want to focus on the next pitch, the next game’s first pitch.”

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