Yu Darvish acclimation to Majors an ongoing process

From the Rangers’ point of view, Yu Darvish’s acclimation to the U.S., and the Major Leagues in particular, has been about as seamless as they could have hoped when they invested $111.7 million for his services.

“The thing is,” general manager Jon Daniels said, “he gets it.”  Understand, Darvish had attained rock-star status in his native Japan (with the flowing locks that suit that status), and so ego could have accompanied him on his trans-Pacific journey to the American League West.

“He doesn’t want special treatment,” Daniels said. “The [Daisuke Matsuzaka] contract, which, obviously, we looked at [for comparison], had almost $400,000 in perks packages, with drivers and cars and housing allowances. [Darvish’s] message to us was, ‘Does the rest of the team get it? No? Then I don’t want it.'”

So Darvish is just one of 25 men in the Rangers’ locker room — albeit the only one who has about 25 men and women covering his every move for Japanese news outlets. And fitting in with the other 24 has not been an issue at all.

“He works on his English, he works on his Spanish, he jokes around with everyone,” second baseman Ian Kinsler said. “He’s great in the clubhouse. He loves to play baseball, he loves to compete. You do that on this club, and you don’t take yourself too seriously, and you’re going to be just fine.”

But acclimating to life on a Major League mound is an ongoing process for the 25-year-old. On Thursday night in Detroit, he held a potent Tigers lineup to one run on two hits over 6 1/3 innings to post his second victory. “It’s hard to be perfect right now,” Darvish said afterward through his interpreter, “but I think I am steadily going in the right direction of getting better.” Even so, he is still looking for the command that was a hallmark of the dominance he displayed in Japan.

According to data on Fangraphs.com, Darvish has thrown first-pitch strikes to just 48.8 percent of the 88 batters he’s faced — well below the league average of 59.2 percent. Because of this, Darvish has not been taking full advantage of his deep arsenal of pitches.

“The biggest thing is going to be strike one,” Daniels said. “He needs to get that so they can’t sit on his fastball.” Darvish’s stuff has come as advertised. His variety of fastballs — a four-seamer, two-seamer and cutter — ranges from 88-95 mph, his slider averages 83 mph and he can throw a curveball at speeds ranging anywhere from the mid-60s to 80 mph — a devastating distinction in speeds. Add it all up, and that’s a potentially elite repertoire.  Again, though, if Darvish is consistently working from…

via Castrovince: Yu’s acclimation to Majors an ongoing process | MLB.com: News.  (video on link)