Farid Yu Darvishsefat ( ダルビッシュ・セファット・ファリード・有 , Darubisshu Sefatto Farīdo Yū , born 16 August 1986) , more commonly known as Yu Darvish (ダルビッシュ 有), is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball (MLB). Darvish has also played in MLB for the Texas Rangers , Los Angeles Dodgers , and Chicago Cubs and in Nippon Professional Baseball for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters . In international play, Darvish pitched in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball
He was considered by many to be the best pitcher in Japanese professional baseball prior to his arrival in Major League Baseball in 2012. [2] [3] In his first MLB season, Darvish finished third in the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year balloting. The next season, he finished second in the AL Cy Young Award vote as he led the Major Leagues in strikeouts with 277 and finished fourth in the AL in earned run average (ERA) at 2.83. On 6 April 2014, Darvish reached the 500-strikeout mark in fewer innings pit
Darvish was born Farid Yu Darvishsefat ( ダルビッシュ・セファット・ファリード・有 ) in Habikino, Osaka , to a Japanese mother, Ikuyo, and Iranian father, Farsad Darvishsefat. [4] His father played for the Florida State University soccer team. [5] [6] His grandfather owned a travel agency in Iran and sent his son Farsad to the United States in 1977 to attend Berkshire School in Berkshire County, Massachusetts , where he played soccer and raced competitively in motocross . [7] [8]