Yu Darvish Will Skip The Angels

It seems like the Rangers and Angels are playing a bit of cat-and-mouse with their new starting pitcher toys. The Rangers spent a small truck load of cash on famed-Japanese ace, Yu Darvish, in the offseason and would prefer if the division rival Angels don’t get a live look at him. Darvish is scheduled to make his next start on Sunday, when the Rangers play the Halos. According to T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com, the Rangers will get Darvish his work in a minor league game instead. Quite genius, if it was 1940 and teams traveled by train. And drinking in the morning wasn’t frowned upon.

Obviously, the Angels would learn more about Darvish having actually faced him but there will be plenty of advanced scouting and video analysis on him by the time he takes the mound against the Angels. Ron Washington downplayed the move saying, “We didn’t want him to travel to Tempe.” Perhaps it was just a precautionary measure, I hear there are some pretty rough senior citizen neighborhoods in Tempe.

The Angels, not be out done, will pull the same move with C.J. Wilson on Sunday. Wilson signed his own big deal with the Angels after moving to the top of the Rangers rotation for the past two seasons. Even though the Rangers are much more familiar with Wilson, the Angels are still going to pitch him in the minors instead of against the Rangers on his next scheduled start Sunday…

This might be a precautionary move as well considering the ridiculous Wilson-Mike Napoli Twitter kerfuffle from earlier this week. Napoli could still be a little miffed about Wilson publishing his phone number. Considering Napoli’s facial hair, he might keep weapons in his van. Haha, just kidding, Naps. We’re cool, right?