Rangers CEO Nolan Ryan: Yu Darvish owns the ‘best slider in baseball,’ why high pitch counts aren’t a huge concern

Texas Rangers CEO Nolan Ryan joined Galloway and Co. on KESN-FM this week to talk about the MLB season so far. Here are some highlights:

On if Yu Darvish should start pitching to contact more:

Well, I think Yu and Yu and because of who he is, that lends to his success. And he has very good command of his breaking balls, and if you watch his last few games, he hasn’t commanded his fastball as well as he has his secondary pitches. And I don’t know if I’d call them his secondary pitches because I really think his slider is the best slider in baseball, so I don’t know that I’d qualify that as a secondary pitch. So I think that because he hasn’t commanded his fastball, he may be going into the count with hitters more than necessary. I think that’ll come around, but with the way he’s throwing, you can’t question that. You’d like to see him be more efficient with his pitches, but that’s being awful critical.

On if 127 pitches and 117 pitches in consecutive outings is too many:

Well, it really comes down to the individual, and with Yu, no it isn’t. With C.J. Wilson, no it isn’t. With Derek Holland, no it isn’t. Colby Lewis? To me, Colby Lewis is efficient to around 100 or 105 pitches. I think that’s just the differences in pitchers. So I think it comes down to an individual thing and I just don’t think that you lump everybody into a category and say that you have to take them out after 100 or 105 pitches.

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