Well, I’ve read the stories about how Darvish lived up to his billing and how good he was. For the most part that’s true, but there were two very important things that didn’t get much mention. First, with the bases loaded and no outs in the second, Curtis Granderson took what was clearly ball four on a 3-2 count. It was called a strike and instead of a 2-1 game with the bases loaded and still no outs, it was still 2-0 Texas with one out. Huge difference. After that, A-Rod grounded into a double play and the Yankees got nothing. If that one pitch had been called correctly the worst that could’ve happened on the A-Rod ball was a double play and a tie game. That one call completely changed the outcome of the game.

On another note, the Yankees were completely unable to lay off Darvish’s off speed stuff with two strikes. All the swinging third strikes were out of the zone and if they had made him work a bit more, again it would have been a different game. Ken Singleton was talking about the pattern up in the YES booth, but the Yankee hitters were unable to adjust.

On another note, Hiroki Kuroda pitched a pretty good game. If he can build on that, it will be a huge boost for a rotation that hasn’t gotten much out of anyone not named Nova or Sabathia. Tonight Phil Hughes gets another shot to right the ship. My prediction? Five plus innings and at least four runs. Let’s hope the offense can pick him up.