I didn’t think I’d be making any posts here about the Texas Rangers this season. However, this baseball fan can’t help but comment on last night’s amazing performance by Yu Darvish. The drama that unfolded last night summarizes everything that is amazing about the game of baseball. I was watching the Dodgers game and generally winding down the day, when Vin Scully commented that Darvish had thrown seven perfect innings. With apologies to Mr. Scully, I immediately searched the DirecTV guide and switched to the Rangers’ game. In general, it wasn’t much of a game. The Rangers rapidly pulled ahead to a 7 – 0 lead. However, Darvish was “poetry in motion”. When I turned the game on, he had thrown something like 107 pitches, of which 74 were strikes. Wow.

Soon enough, he had sent 26 batters back to the bench in the order he saw them. He had struck out 14 of those. We were down to the last batter, Marwin Gonzalez, and then there it was: a hard single right up the middle – between Darvish’s legs, in fact. I joined all baseball fans in our nation-wide group scream. I felt awful for the guy, but dang, what a performance!

But then, this is why I love baseball. You can have edge-of-the-seat suspense, waiting with the possibility of ultimate perfection. Then, you can have the range of emotion, from Darvish’s smile of relief after the hit to his look of utter devastation in the dugout after he left the game. And this morning, the bittersweet look back at what it could have been and what it was. And what was it? One of the best pitching performances you will ever see, and some of the best drama ever performed before an audience.

Thank you, Yu Darvish!

After last night, I am now even more convinced that the 2013 season is going to be one of the best baseball seasons ever.