In the bottom of the eighth inning during Sunday night’s game between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, ESPN announcer Alex Rodriguez ran out of things to say, so he decided to make shit up about players losing respect for Yu Darvish.
Here’s the video in case you missed it.
Here's Alex Rodriguez making shit up about Yu Darvish and the Cubs. pic.twitter.com/3KmUyCc6Nu
— Aldo Soto (@AldoSoto21) July 30, 2018
Before we get into the big piece of speculation regarding Darvish and the Cubs, let’s take a moment to laugh at A-Rod saying about Darvish, “three of the worst months you can ever see,” and then 30 seconds later he praises Tyler fucking Chatwood for going out there and walking the park every fifth day.
Anyway, A-Rod throwing out some serious allegations that players in the Cubs clubhouse will lose respect for Darvish because in the words of A-Rod…
“It’s gotten so bad they’ve let him police and take control of his own rehab, which is scary because they don’t want to create anything that he can kind of push back against. He’ll let the team know when’s ready, which let me tell you what this means to a clubhouse, you lose respect quickly.”
Everyone shit on A-Rod and then ESPN 1000 radio host Marc Silverman from Waddle and Silvy said this.
If you don’t like what @AROD said about Darvish…listen to our interviews w/ @Sut_ESPN, @Kurkjian_ESPN, and @ESPNChiCubs from this past week. The whispers about Darvish are getting louder inside the #Cubs.
— Silvy (@WaddleandSilvy) July 30, 2018
ESPN’s Jesse Rogers added this.
I've said on the radio you get the odd eye roll at times….nothing said on the record so that's as far as I'll go…can't be shocked…no one knows exactly what's up in that arm
— Jesse Rogers (@ESPNChiCubs) July 30, 2018
My take on all of this?
There is definitely frustration by everyone on the Cubs that Darvish is injured and they want him back and not having him pitch is frustrating because overall the rotation hasn’t been as good as advertised. Darvish was brought to Chicago to be another top-of-the-rotation pitcher. So yeah, it sucks that he’s been out for the last 2.5 months.
So yeah, I bet that just like fans, players are wondering when Darvish will return because there hasn’t been a set timetable since his setback in June.
HOWEVER!
When Alex Rodriguez goes on a national broadcast and says that the situation is getting bad in the Cubs clubhouse, it is complete bullshit.
There’s a difference between being frustrated over a guy not returning from injury and flat out losing respect for him. I mean, we’re talking about a clubhouse that had no problem welcoming back Tommy La Stella a few years ago after he literally quit the team because he got optioned to Triple-A.
And to go back to the interviews that Silvy referenced, here’s ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian on Darvish.
Here's Tim Kurkjian on Yu Darvish. Again, it only sounds like the Cubs just want Darvish back soon, not that they're losing respect for him like A-Rod said during the broadcast. Btw, this was before Friday's bullpen, which was another positive step for Yu's return. pic.twitter.com/HqKu0EbFHf
— Aldo Soto (@AldoSoto21) July 30, 2018
Like I said before and in the tweet, it just sounds like the Cubs want Darvish back soon, not that they hate him.
By the way, is the other side of this entire discussion that Yu Darvish is faking or isn’t actually as hurt as he says? Do people buy that? And that brings me to the Rick Sutcliffe interview.
I listened to it and Sutcliffe basically thinks Darvish isn’t actually injured. Really does sound like a personal thing with Sutcliffe, who also said that Darvish should just go home.
Many people pointed me to Sutcliffe's interview on Waddle and Silvy as evidence in favor of A-Rod's claims. And then Sut basically goes off and Darvish before admitting that he doesn't like him because he failed to sign autographs this spring.
— Evan Altman (@DEvanAltman) July 30, 2018
By the way, all this is coming after Darvish pitched another bullpen session on Friday, when Theo Epstein said the following.
“You can be misled parsing every sentence that he says or every adjective and every phrase,” Epstein said. “The bottom line is that it was a very positive day. He felt good. He made some adjustments trying to get his feel back for his arm action as he went. I think he got through a little bit of discomfort and ended up feeling really good and throwing more afterwards and is looking forward to his next bullpen.”
Joe Maddon responded to the A-Rod comments after the Cubs won 5-2.
Maddon on A-Rod's comments during the ESPN broadcast: pic.twitter.com/w1UeDoUUgI
— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) July 30, 2018
By the way, Darvish’s contract being the very first thing A-Rod brought up was probably just from a column he submitted to join the Chicago Sun-Times to write about the Cubs.
You can listen to the full interviews here.
