Dodgers: Yu Darvish cracking Clayton Kershaw joke lightens rivalry with Padres

Yu Darvish’s half-season with the Los Angeles Dodgers truly feels like ages ago.

Back in 2017, the team acquired the right-hander in a trade with the Texas Rangers. That year, the Dodgers made it to the World Series for the first time in a loooong time, and they got to Game 7 against the Houston Astros.

Darvish started Games 3 and 7. Both were disasters.

He combined for 3.1 innings of work with eight earned runs on nine hits and a walk. The Dodgers lost both of those games — on on the road and one at home — and the Fall Classic.

To Darvish’s “benefit” — if we can even call it that — the Astros were found to have orchestrated a widespread cheating scandal that year.

Nonetheless, his time in LA is not remembered fondly despite his 3.44 ERA and 1.15 WHIP in his nine regular season starts that year. Now, he’s with the division-rival San Diego Padres, but he’s still got ties with the Dodgers.

Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw and Yu Darvish have a friendly rivalry.

Clayton Kershaw is his offseason catch partner! What?! How about that?

Apparently these two were slinging the ball around when Darvish was still a member of the Chicago Cubs because … he still hasn’t heard from Kersh since the trade with the Padres. Darvish came to San Diego along with Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove to help form a super rotation of sorts, and the Pads are off to one of the hottest starts in the league.

But the Dodgers hold the distinction for “best” start in all of baseball, and these two teams will do battle this coming weekend at Petco Park. Kershaw and Darvish are scheduled to go head-to-head on Saturday. A new chapter of the rivalry!

It’s truly hard to dislike Darvish, who often provides comedic relief for fans on social media. He also just recently spoke on Pitching Ninja’s YouTube series to talk about his pitches, grips and release points. Pretty cool if you ask us!

And now that he’s cracking jokes about the Dodgers-Padres rivalry, it sure does lighten the tensions a bit after the offseason arms race. Darvish is here to remind us that it’s all just a game with his playful dig at Kershaw, and we can expect these two to embrace prior to the series opener on Friday.

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